Women in Prehistory
Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture
WOMEN
IN
Prehistory
by
Margaret Ehrenberg
University of Oklahoma Press
Norman and London
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to all the friends and
colleagues, whether specifically acknowledged or not, who
have helped me throughout the evolution of this book: no one
but myself is responsible for any errors which remain. In
particular I wish to thank the following: Tom Forrest of the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, whose Sociology of
Sex Roles course. which I attended in r 9.84 while on a teaching
exchange, inspired my interest in the archaeology of women
and gender roles: my archaeological colleagues who offered
advice and comments from their different perspectives Jennifer Price of the University of Leeds, Janet Levy of the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. and especially
Catherine Johns of the British Museum, without whose
encouragement I would not have begun to write the book: a
number of specialists in various fields from whom I sought
advice on their particular interests, including Harold
Mattingly, formerly of the University of Leeds. on the classical
texts referring to Iron Age Europe, Lesley Fitton of the British
Museum. on the Minoans, and Andrew Sherratt of the
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, on the Later Neolithic and other
aspects: Erica Mattingly, Sue Hardman and particularly Ingrid
Lawrie for reading, checking and questioning the manuscript
in various draft stages: the individuals and museums who have
provided photographs: the Audio-Visual Service and the InterLibrary Loan Service, University of Leeds: and finally Teresa
Francis of British Museum Publications. for her help and
patience.
ISBN: 0-806
ISBN: 0-8061-22
1-222
(cloth)
') 7-4 (paperback)
')-4
Library of Congress Cata log Card Number: 89-40214
Copyright 1c I 989 by Margaret Ehrenberg. Published in the United
States of America by the University of Oklahoma Press, 1'.'orman.
Publishing Division of the University. All rights reserved.
Manufactured in Great Britain. First University of Oklahoma Press
edition. 1 989.
Women in Prehistory
is Volume 4 in the Oklahoma Series in Classical
Culture.
Designed by James Sh urmer
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd, Frome, Somerset
Contents
Introduction
page
7
1 The Search for Prehistoric Woman
IO
Anthropological evidence
IS
The behaviour of other animals and primates
20
Later documentary sources
21
Archaeological evidence
23
2 The Earliest Communities
38
The role of women in human evolution
41
Women in modern and Palaeolithic foraging societies
50
Matriarchy, patriarchy or equality
63
Mother goddesses or Venus figurines?
66
3 The First Farmers
77
The discovery of agriculture
77
The expansion of agricultural communities
90
The secondary products revolution
99
4 The Bronze Age
108
Was Minoan Crete a matriarchy?
109·
Burials, grave goods and wealth in north-west Europe
118
A trade in women?
136
Rock art in the Alps and Scandinavia
139
continued
Contents continued
5 The Celtic Iron Age
page
142
Domestic organisation in Iron Age Britain
143
Decoration on Hallstatt pottery and bronze vessels
147
Literary sources
151
Prophets and priestesses
157
Descent and marriage patterns
157
Women in war
162
Tribal chiefs and commanders in battle
164
6 Conclusions
I
Glossary
l""'S
/.
Notes
17""'
I I
Bibliography
182
Index
188
71
Introduction
This book has been written for two distinct, though I hope increasingly
overlapping, groups of readers. As an archaeologist I am writing for everyone interested in women's past; as a feminist I am writing for archaeologists,
especially those who do not seem to have contemplated that 'Stone Age
Woman' lived alongside 'Stone Age Man'.
I have reconsidered a range of archaeological evidence in order to see
what light it can throw on the lives, social roles and status of women in
prehistoric Europe, and have two aims in presenting it here. Firstly, I hope
to explain something of how archaeology works to readers whose primary
interest is in women of other times and places. Many recent studies of
women's history and of the origins of their present roles and status in the
Western world begin with a consideration of the distant or prehistoric past,
but all too often their authors lack specialised knowledge of the nature,
limitations and potential use of archaeological evidence. This is not their
fault, but that of archaeologists who, with rare exceptions, have not tackled
the issues raised by feminist scholars which lie within their domain. I
also hope to convey something of the fascination and the challenge of
interpreting archaeological evidence in these terms. It is therefore essential
to begin by describing the methods, scope and limitations of archaeology
where they are relevant to various themes which will be explored. Many
people think of archaeology as consisting solely of digging holes in the
ground, perhaps searching for buried treasure; others may have visited an
excavation but remain unaware of how interpretations are reached from
the evidence uncovered there. In order to show how archaeology can shed
light on the lives of women in prehistory, it will be necessary to explain
many aspects of modern archaeological methodology, including, for
example, aspects of environmental archaeology and palaeo-osteology. As
these techniques are relevant to almost all fields of archaeology, their
consideration should be of interest to everyone wishing to understand the
way in which prehistorians and archaeologists work.
But this book is also intended for fellow prehistorians and archaeologists
who have not yet considered the application of feminist theory to archaeology. Why do prehistorians need to know about women in the past?
Within the context of the topics studied under the general heading of
theoretical archaeology, the lack of research into women's roles and status
appears as almost an accidental oversight, except when it is seen as part
of the general invisibility of women in nearly all academic disciplines. In
7
Women in Prehistory
· the last decade archaeologists have not hesitated to examine topics such
as power and belief systems, which to a previous generation of scholars
would not have seemed either possible or proper subjects for archaeological
investigation. No archaeologist would pretend that it is easy to study these
areas, in which emphasis is placed on constructing theoretical models
which can be tested against archaeological evidence. These models often
have their roots in a range of related disciplines, such as anthropology,
sociology and geography. On the other hand, some of the best recent
archaeological work, on topics such as diet and exchange, involves the
detailed examination of evidence from new excavations, or the reworking
of previously discovered material, and often uses techniques borrowed from
the physical and biological sciences. From one or both of these roots any
and every aspect of prehistoric life and behaviour is being studied, working
hypotheses constructed and proof sought, even if not always satisfactorily
discovered. The one omission, it seems (with a few important exceptions,
which will be drawn together here) is the nature of gender roles and
relations, a topic of key importance to life today. To begin with the supposition that this topic may have been important in the past, and is therefore
worthy of study, is surely not unreasonable. Progress in working other,
previously intractable, areas suggests it should be possible.
It took me a long time to appreciate the need to work on the topic of
women in prehistory. My own initial academic training was in a very
traditional archaeology department. where great emphasis was placed
on rigorous evaluation of evidence and a full awareness of the limits of
archaeological inference; theory and the then 'new archaeology' were
viewed with some suspicion. If I had asked, as a student, what women
were doing while Neolithic Man was busy making flint arrowheads or
Iron Age Man building elaborate hillforts, my question would have been
considered impertinent or frivolous. Certainly I should have been told
that such a question was not susceptible of archaeological investigation.
Although I was always interested in theoretical archaeology and concerned
with the position of women in our own society, it was a long time before I
realised that the study of women in past societies, and in particular in
prehistory, was, or could be, a subject for serious academic study. I did not
see that the logical extension of the growing field of women's history into
my own specialism of prehistory could produce women's prehistory, nor
that my increasingly careful use of non-sexist language when referring to
people in prehistory was insufficient to balance the decades of research
biased towards probable male activities in the past.
In 1984 I exchanged my teaching post in the archaeology department
of an English university for a similar post in the United States, where
archaeology was taught within the department of Sociology and Anthro8
Introduction
pology, and I was there required to teach introductory anthropology. At
the same time, I attended a class called 'The Sociology of Sex Roles'. This,
combined with my anthropology teaching and discussions with my new
colleagues, made me aware of the widespread interest in women in other
cultures, past and present. In the United States these subjects were gradually
becoming academically respectable, though this had not been without a
good deal of tension and fighting by pioneering women in each field, mainly
in the r 9 70s. Women had lost tenure at their universities because their
books had not been judged, by their male colleagues, to be on subjects as
worthy of study as other traditional male-orientated fields.1 Reading in
these fields, and thinking about my own discipline, I recalled few instances
of discussion about women in the European literature on prehistory with
which I was familiar, and no specific studies. Even in America, a few articles
on human evolution and a smattering of articles on other aspects seemed
to be the limit of interest in women in the archaeological record. Since then
a number of articles have started to rectify that situation.
On my return to Britain I became increasingly interested in the possibilities of studying the roles and position of women from the archaeological
record, and more specifically in European prehistory. This book, then, is an
attempt to pursue some of these possibilities. The range of topics which
could be covered by the title is vast, so it has been necessary to be selective,
in order even to attempt to do justice to those areas and problems which I
have chosen to consider. Its geographical scope has been limited to the Old
World. However, the section on methodology is applicable to any part of
the world at any period, and the survey which follows it extends where
necessary beyond Europe, in particular in the discussions of the Palaeolithic
(Chapter 2) and the origins of agriculture (Chapter 3).
The choice of topics was not without problems. I have not attempted to
deal with every reference to women in the vast archaeological literature,
and have refrained from commenting on the many sexist assumptions
which it contains. Criticism of some equally dubious feminist literature,
which is based on ignorant and undiscriminating use of archaeological
evidence, is likewise outside the scope of my discussion. Nor have I mentioned many themes found in general text-books on European prehistory.
This is not because I think they are unimportant, or that it would not be
possible to draw some inferences about women in those areas: on the
contrary, I hope other archaeologists may be stimulated by this volume to
assess the contribution made by women to the site or culture they are
studying. Although I have arranged my topics chronologically, and have
sought to deal with some of the main issues of European prehistory, I have
felt that it was more useful to treat some areas in depth than to attempt a
more comprehensive, but necessarily more superficial, coverage.
9
I
The Search for Prehistoric Woman
Prehistory holds a key to many of the questions uppermost in the minds of
women interested in their present status in society, its origins and its future.
Students of women's history can analyse the roles and position of women
over the last few centuries from written accounts. We learn from these that
the lives of most of our recent ancestors were not very different from our
own, despite the growing appreciation of notable exceptions, the details of
whose lives have been effectively suppressed by our patriarchal society. 1
But has it always been like this? And how can we know? The prehistoric
period is by definition the time before the advent of written records, or
history, which in north-west Europe more or less equates with the growth
of the Roman empire, and we must rely mainly on the evidence of archaeology - the study of physical remains which were left for the most part
incidentally, and which have survived through two millennia or more.
Although archaeology has its limitations. it also has important advantages over written records as a source of information about the past. If
properly studied, most aspects of life may. directly or indirectly. be found
to leave some slight physical traces. Archaeological evidence has been
described as 'unconscious', in the sense that the people who made the
objects. built the structures and discarded the rubbish which make it up,
did so without the conscious knowledge that anyone in the future would
'read' or study it. 2 Thus archaeology should provide information about the
behaviour of the whole of the society being studied, without any external
sexual bias. This contrasts, for example. with the deliberate suppression of
much literature written by women, because it was deemed unimportant in
a male-dominated society. However. this does not mean that biases which
existed within a society need go unnoticed. The choice of design of artefacts.
buildings and other evidence of the culture will accord with what is deemed
appropriate by that society or sub-group. So. to take a simple example, if
women and men wear different clothes, this is a decision made by the
society. albeit at a subconscious level. and suggests that women and men
are perceived as different sub-groups.
Another problem faced by women's historians is that most early written
records were written by men and about unusual events rather than about
everyday lifestyles, and they usually refer to the lives of a small number of
wealthy or exceptional people, few of whom were women. The everyday
lives of the majority of women were never considered worth describing. By
contrast. this is not so true of much archaeological evidence. The settlement
10
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
sites with their houses and the evidence they provide for the society's
economy may represent a complete cross-section of a community, and
·certainly reflect everyday life, rather than the one-off events described in
most later written records. A whole community may be buried in a particular cemetery, and the everyday tools used by the group may survive. It
is true that in some communities certain special people may have had more
material possessions. or lived in houses built more substantially than those
of poorer people. These are more likely to be discovered by archaeological
excavation. Wealthier people may be buried with more elaborate grave
goods, perhaps in more lasting graves. But the contrast between evidence
for the rich and the poor, between special events and everyday life, is not
nearly as marked as with historical evidence, and in many cases we are
able to study the lives of the majority of a population. So, unlike the history
of kings and queens. archaeology tells the prehistory of all women and
men.
The degree of social and political power held by women in prehistoric
societies is a subject to which little attention has as yet been paid by
archaeologists, although archaeological evidence may be able to provide
indications of wealth and status. and hence of the degree of social stratification within a society. The origin of social hierarchies is a key topic
within current archaeology, and. together with analysis of the position of
women within the system. it also plays a major part in feminist theories.
This is clearly a complex issue: why do societies allow some individuals to
become more influential, or hold more status than others? How is status
gained? Does it come from the possession of individual wealth, or from skill
in a particular field? Need everyone of high status in a society have acquired
it in the same way? For example, could some individuals acquire status
from skill in food production. others from trading, or perhaps ritual or
religious specialisation? And what about bringing up children? Why, in
modern Western societies, are women usually of lower status than men of
the same social background? What is the social relationship between a rich
woman and a poor man, and between a rich woman and a rich man?
These are crucial questions, since, as we shall see, the existence of a few
powerful women, perhaps as leaders of a society, does not necessarily mean
that women in general had status above men in general. But these questions
presuppose a class-based society. Were there ever any societies which were
classless, where everyone had equal access to food and material possessions,
and where everyone, woman or man, was considered to be of equal
importance? Archaeology can, I think, help to answer these questions, as
we shall see in the following chapters.
One aspect of this issue which needs to be addressed here is the muchdebated question of the existence of matriarchal societies, where women
II
Women in Prehistory
held as much power as men do within patriarchal societies. Although there
seem to be few, if any, examples of true matriarchies now or in the recent
past, the possibility that they existed in the prehistoric period must be
carefully considered. By the time of the earliest written ·records of classical
Europe - the advent of history - patriarchal societies held sway. A burning
question for many women is whether it has always been like that. So when
or where did male-dominated societies originate? And how and why did
men begin to dominate women? Have women always been consigned to
the domestic role? Was 'housework' always the lowest-status occupation?
In the nineteenth century, the influential writers Bachofen, Morgan and
Engels put forward the theory that matriarchal societies existed in the
earliest phases of prehistory, and that these were later overturned by the
patriarchal societies which were universal by the time of written records.
This model was based partly on classical mythology, partly on nineteenthcentury anthropology: no archaeological data were then, or subsequently,
seriously examined for substantiating evidence. Not surprisingly, in view
of its potential importance to women's status, and to support arguments
surrounding ideas for contemporary and future society, many feminists
have sought to re-examine this theory of matriarchy, and some anthropologists have joined in the debate. Archaeologists have not, so far, become
involved, and yet if questions such as this can be resolved at all, the answers
must surely lie within the scope of their discipline.
So how can prehistorians try to answer these and numerous other
questions about life and society in the distant past? Archaeological evidence
comes mainly from careful excavation of the surviving remains of settlements, burials and other sites where people have spent some time and
disturbed the ground or left debris. But it is a long step from a house being
occupied to its providing archaeological evidence of the way of life of its
occupants. For instance, why was the house abandoned? If it burnt down,
was flooded or inundated with sand, the possessions of the owners may
have been left inside. But usually when people move house, they take their
portable property with them. We cannot normally expect them to leave
anything other than unwanted debris. Over the course of years and centuries most of this debris will decay, especially organic materials such as
wooden furniture, tools and utensils, cloth and basketry. and most food
remains. Even these will usually be subject to disturbance, for example by
later ploughing, building and the activities of burrowing animals. So only
the exceptional site can be expected to survive. It then needs to be discovered, which often happens by accident. However, some sites are found by
deliberate survey, when archaeologists look for clues on the ground or in
changes in the growth of crops where they are planted over richer, disturbed
soil, or for slight humps and bumps which are often best seen from overhead,
12
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
in a low-flying aeroplane. The time and cost of modern excavation, together
with all the scientific analysis necessary to gain a full understanding of the
site, means that only a small proportion of known sites can be excavated.
Excavation itself is a skilled business, in which archaeologists must notice
and record every slight change in the colour and texture of the soil, which
may be the only trace of building foundations or the activities that once
took place in it, and they must carefully record and lift the remains of
artefacts used there. Post-excavation work usually takes far longer than
the excavation itself. This includes the study of the various data recorded
on the site: samples of soils are analysed for traces of seeds and other minute
remains, and the artefacts are researched by specialists. Though burials
and other deliberate deposits will normally have been placed carefully in
the ground, they too are not immune from the processes of decay and
disturbance. So archaeology will only ever provide a minute fraction of the
information we could want to obtain about a past society. How much will
depend on the quality and quantity of excavation, but more significantly
on the way the raw data from excavations is interpreted. 3
Archaeological evidence in itself tells us little. It needs to be interpreted.
All archaeologists would agree with that, but how far that interpretation
can go and on what basis it should be made, is the subject of considerable
controversy. Some argue that archaeology should limit itself to the most
fundamental matters like the date of a site or artefact, its basic function
and how it was made, and perhaps expand from there to consider its
implications for the economy of the society responsible for its creation.
Since the r 960s more and more archaeologists have been taking the
opposite view, maintaining that the challenge of the subject lies in using
the available data to give the most likely answer to any question that may
be asked about a past society. Most, perhaps, would take a middle course,
attempting to put forward theories about some aspects of the social, political
and possibly the religious life of the society, while remaining sceptical about
the possibility of using archaeology to draw inferences about certain other
aspects. 4 The life of women in societies now represented only by archaeological evidence is an excellent example of a subject which would have
seemed unknowable to a past generation of archaeologists, but should
present a valid challenge within the context of today's 'theoretical' archaeology. 5 The difficulty of interpretation may partially explain why the study
of this subject has been attempted only rarely, and then only in respect of
one particular society or problem. It is also extremely important to be
constantly aware that nearly every idea put forward by archaeologists is
theory or hypothesis, rather than firm fact. Good archaeology is selecting
the theory which best fits all the available evidence and is not contradicted
by any relevant data which may, or may perhaps not, be known to the
13
Women in Prehistory
archaeologist in question. Of course, new data may subsequently come to
light and either refute a previously perfectly sound theory or strengthen
one which was based on comparatively little evidence. So the ideas which
I will put forward here, about how women lived in prehistoric Europe,
should and will be judged on how well they 'fit the often sparse archaeological evidence.
And how are these theories formed? That too is a controversial point
amongst archaeologists. Traditionally, theories were supposed to emerge
empirically from the evidence, and be apparent to anyone sufficiently
familiar with the facts. But inevitably the range of possibilities will be
limited, or at least coloured, by the experience of the archaeologist. Many
theories about prehistoric societies began to develop in the nineteenth or
early twentieth century, and if we examine many well-established archaeological assumptions, we can discern the biases of scholars educated in the
classics and history, from a middle- or upper-class elite and certainly a
male-dominated background. No one would have questioned whether men,
rather than women, were the hunters, or whether some men would have
had more wealth or power than others. In seeking to know how a prehistoric society operated, we first need a broad understanding of how
societies operate in general, and what range of variation might be conceivable. Many modern archaeological theorists base their hypotheses on
one or other of the many current sociological doctrines, such as Marxism,
structuralism or materialism, and consider how a particular behaviour
pattern might show up in the archaeological record. Others, aware of the
limited number of such patterns manifested in modern Western society which is almost invariably that best known to the archaeologist and also
most frequently considered by sociologists - look for inspiration to the rest of
the world, and in particular to the cultures studied by social anthropologists.
But even anthropology is limited in the range of models it can provide.
For instance, anthropologists studying women in other cultures around
the world today show us a wide range of patterns of interaction between
women and men, and in the tasks and roles usually allocated to each sex.
But it cannot be assumed that the lives of women in prehistory were
identical to those of other cultures today or in the more recent past. No
two societies are identical in all aspects of their social. economic, political
or religious behaviour; their material culture (such as the houses they
build, tools they use and art and design they create) will be different from
anyone else's. Broad patterns certainly exist, both within regions of the
world and within similar subsistence economies. and this recurrence will
be used as a basis for much of the discussion throughout this book. Where
archaeological evidence indicates similarities with present-day societies,
these may be acknowledged, but equally, where it does not. we must be
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
prepared to consider that behaviour patterns may have existed in the past
which are quite unlike those found today. Rather than using ethnographic
data to give definitive guidelines for understanding how women lived in
the past, we may be prompted by the variety of patterns and behaviour
that they show to grow more curious about our own ancestors in the
distant past.
The use of anthropological evidence by archaeologists is discussed in the
following section, before a consideration of the various types of direct
archaeological data which are available to the prehistorian.
Anthropological evidence
One of the ways in which archaeologists can construct hypotheses about life
in prehistoric societies is by looking at present-day societies with traditional
lifestyles based on economies and technologies much simpler than those of
the Western world. Such lifestyles may resemble those of the past more
closely than most of our own do. These societies are studied principally by
ethnographers. who look at all aspects of a single society in depth. and by
social anthropologists, who are interested in how a particular aspect of
social behaviour varies between different societies and types of society.
The use of ethnographic and anthropological data by archaeologists is
controversial. 6 Initially it involved simple comparisons of artefacts discovered in prehistoric contexts with objects used by one or more groups
elsewhere in the world today. An archaeological artefact which resembled
one used by a present-day society was assumed to have had a similar
function, and' other implications about the archaeological society were then
construed on the basis of what was known about the present-day one.
Such an approach holds many pitfalls and must be used with great caution.
It is easy to note a few similarities between an archaeological culture. such
as the Ice Age inhabitants of Europe, and a single ethnographic example,
such as the Inuit (Eskimos). and assume that the two societies had other
things in common as well. It is far better to look for more generalised and
recurring patterns amongst anthropological cases, as more recent studies
have done, and to include as many criteria as possible in the comparisons.
If all, or nearly all, known societies with a similar economic and technological base and living in a similar type of environment as a past society
share a certain form of social organisation, it seems reasonable to take this
as a working model for the archaeological case. However, it is important
also to remember that the societies and people studied by anthropologists
have had just as long to evolve as people in the Western world, and even
if the technology or subsistence base of these societies seems to us to be
rather simple. their social and religious behaviour may be very complex.
15
The Search for Prehistoric Woman
was totally different from anything in existence today must certainly be
considered if the data warrants it. However, in other cases some behaviour
patterns recur so regularly that to ignore them without good reason seems
just as perverse. I have therefore attempted to use all the available direct
archaeological evidence as a basis for a hypothesis, but have not hesitated
to draw heavily on anthropological data in considering patterns of behaviour with regard to gender roles and the status of women when this helps
to complete the picture of women's lives at particular periods and places in
the prehistoric past.
Anthropological evidence is of course much fuller than archaeological
evidence. An anthropologist will ideally live with a particular group of
people for a full year or more, learn the language, and get to know the
people and gain their confidence. Behaviour patterns can be observed, and
1 (left) A traditional craft: a
Navaho Indian woman weaving
a rug.
2 Typical archaeological
evidence for the same activity:
bone needles or shuttles, bone
weaving combs for pushing
down the weft threads. and
loomweights of baked clay.
17
Women in Prehistory
members of the group can be asked to explain why they do things in a
particular way. A large and varied body of material can thus be collected.
although nowadays most anthropologists concentrate on a single aspect of
behaviour. However, even here bias may creep in: on the one hand, the
people being studied may unwittingly or deliberately withhold information;
on the other, and probably more frequently, the anthropologist may only
observe and record those aspects of behaviour which concern him or her,
even though these are not necessarily central to the life of the group.
Unfortunately, the sphere in which this seems most commonly to occur is
precisely that which concerns us here, namely the lives of women.
Although women, including some very well-known names, have been
anthropologists, most anthropologists, especially before the I 960s, have
been male. Whether deliberately or as the unconscious result of coming
from a male-dominated society and academic background, they have generally been concerned principally with male activities, and have failed to
observe female tasks and behaviour. Furthermore, all the societies that can
be studied today have had some contact, however minimal, with the
'modern' world, and this may have caused some changes in their behaviour.
For example, during the eighteenth or nineteenth century, a Western.
and almost certainly male, explorer, missionary or anthropologist finding
himself in an African village would have expected to meet and talk to
the male inhabitants. After a few encounters, whatever the pre-existing
situation, the men would have acted as spokespersons. They would have
acquired Western trinkets, which, as novelties, would almost certainly have
been highly regarded, thereby enhancing their own status. After perhaps
a century or so of infrequent contacts of this kind, modern anthropologists,
however objective their own observations, will find native men and women
behaving in patterns remarkably reflective of Western culture. If a society
has been influenced by the attitudes of missionaries, or by early nationstate government 'aid', Western gender roles are even more likely to be in
evidence. Moreover, the earliest Western accounts of traditional societies
were usually written by men, who only described topics of interest to
themselves, or those activities which they were allowed to witness. Women
of the society in question may not have wished to explain their behaviour
to men of their own group, let alone outsiders, and may have performed
tasks and rituals away from their sight. Thus, important women-only or
women-dominated activities may never have been recorded. and in some
cases may have ceased to be practised as a result of direct or indirect
Western pressure. Any comparisons between women's roles and status in
modern or very recent societies and their possible pos1t10n m prehistory
must therefore be treated with very great caution.'
Since the early 1970s an increasing number of women have been
t8
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
involved in anthropological fieldwork. and American anthropologists
especially have studied aspects of the lives of women and gender relationships in traditional societies. The anthropology of women is now a wellaccepted subject-area within the discipline. and early records of traditional
societies have been reanalysed to pick out fleeting references to the lives of
women. 8
An additional problem faced by an archaeologist wishing to make use of
anthropological conclusions is that most recent anthropological fieldwork
has not concerned itself with the physical traces left by aspects of social
behaviour. It is thus not possible for archaeologists to discover what
material evidence a particular set of behavioural patterns might leave
behind by studying anthropological accounts alone. The field of 'ethnoarchaeology' has therefore been developed by archaeologists who themselves carry out fieldwork in ethnographic contexts to study just such
problems. 9 An ethnoarchaeological study might, for example, look at the
debris left by a modern forager band after a few nights' stay at one camp
or homebase. The nature of the debris and its distribution can be analysed
to see what archaeological pattern would be left after most of the organic
waste had decomposed.
One of the very few studies dealing with the problem of how past
gender roles can be inferred from archaeological evidence adopts this
ethnoarchaeological approach. Using a method she calls Male/Female
Task Differentiation, Janet Spector 10 argues that studying gender differentiation in archaeological contexts necessitates prior background work in
ethnographic contexts, detailing the tasks performed by women and men,
the areas within the settlement used for each activity, the equipment and
the value given to the task. If this information is viewed against a full
picture of a society, to ensure that it provides an appropriate model for
comparison with a particular archaeological context, it should be possible
to suggest far more detail about gender roles in prehistory than has hitherto
been possible.
As an example, Spector has reanalysed accounts of the Hidatsa Indians
of the Great Plains of North America. Although the group is no longer
extant, it was studied in detail in the early twentieth century; informants
described its way of life in the mid-nineteenth century, when the people
were sedentary hoe agriculturalists living in 'earth lodge' villages. The
accounts are sufficiently detailed to allow the identification of at least some
of the tasks performed by women and men respectively, the time of year
these tasks were carried out, where in the village they took place and
the materials and equipment associated with them. For example, Hidatsa
women procured and processed all food resources, with the exception of
killing and butchering animals and growing and processing tobacco, which
19
Women in Prehistory
were male tasks. There were also important differences in the locations in
which male and female activities took place. Other tasks which must
obviously have been performed, such as child-rearing, are not mentioned
in the early accounts; this highlights the need for archaeologists interested
in this type of approach to carry out their own fieldwork among presentday peoples. However, as Spector herself admits, it is clearly not feasible for
any one person to study more than a few groups, and the findings then
have to be compared with the evidence of different archaeological cases, so
it will be a long time before this promising method produces substantial
results.
The behaviour of other animals and primates
Another area of research which can be of use to anthropologists and
archaeologists investigating human behaviour is the comparative study of
other animals, especially the primates, whose physiology most closely
resembles our own. Important research of this kind includes observing the
animals, such as chimpanzees and gorillas, in their native habitat over a
long period of time, and without any human interference, and has been
carried out by a number of scholars, such as Jane Goodall in Kombe,
Tanzania, and the late Dian Fossey in Rwanda. 11 Differences in the behaviour of males and females, unencumbered by millennia of human cultural
conditioning, have important implications for natural or genetic behavioural differences between the sexes in humans, and provide a particularly
useful basis on which to build hypotheses concerning aspects of the earliest
human behaviour such as the significance of motherhood or the origins of
tool-using (Fig. 8). Recent detailed studies of the behaviour of other animals
have also proved useful in research aimed at distinguishing natural sexual
differences in behaviour from learnt gender behaviour in humans. Many
traits previously thought to be unique to humans are now known to be
common throughout much of the animal world. Group hunting and cooperation are found, for example, amongst wolves and lions; tool-using is
seen in thrushes, which break open the shell of a snail by hitting it on a
stone; and male birds of several species help the female to feed the young
while they are still in the nest. Primate behaviour studies are particularly
relevant to the earliest stages of human evolution and are discussed in
more detail in Chapter 2.
20
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
Later documentary sources
By definition, the study of prehistory is concerned with the period in the
human past before history, or in other words before the advent of any
written records. The term is usually applied separately to each area of the
world, referring to the period before the use of writing in that particular
area. Even within Europe writing developed in different areas at different
times, and in many parts of the continent written records are scarce until
the medieval period. Some of the earliest inscriptions or evidence of writing
remain undeciphered or illegible to modern scholars. Moreover, most of
the earliest written records which can be interpreted list rulers or kings,
commemorate battles or the erection of buildings, or name the owner or
maker of the object on which the inscription is found, rather than describing
lifestyles or behaviour. In many areas a number of intermediate stages may
be recognised, which fall between the totally prehistoric, where there are
no records at all, and the fully historic, where a fairly detailed picture can
be built up from written records alone. Let us take Britain as an example.
Although it is just conceivable that there was writing on perishable material
which has not survived, as far as we know nothing was written in Britain
in any form before inscriptions on coins in the first century BC, and even
these are restricted to a few characters, usually the initial letters of names
of people and tribes. But in Egypt and Mesopotamia writing had been
practised since about 3000 BC, and in Greece the alphabet was first used
about 700 BC. Greek and Roman writers and travellers such as Posidonius
and Strabo had described some aspects of Britain from the second century BC;
the most notable classical writer on Britain was probably Julius Caesar in
the first century BC. So although the people of Iron Age Britain did not
themselves write, a few descriptions do exist written by foreigners.
Under the Roman empire the way of life of the inhabitants of Europe
would have continued very much as before, but they would have been in
closer contact with people who could write. Some Romans living in the
provinces have left descriptions of the lifestyles of people who lived there
before the Roman conquest. Tacitus' accounts of Germanic tribes in Agricola
and Germania are good examples. If it can be assumed that the key aspects
of life had not altered significantly, descriptions like these may shed light
on prehistoric, as well as slightly later, times. However, when evaluating
them, the circumstances in which they were written must be borne in
mind. In many cases it is unlikely that the author had ever visited the
area himself or witnessed the events or behaviour he was describing. For
example, Caesar's main concern was to report on his battles with the
inhabitants of Gaul (modern France) and his attempted invasion of Britain
to influential people in Rome. It was in his interest to make his enemies seem
21
Women in Prehistory
as fierce as possible, yet he would hardly have witnessed their behaviour off
the battlefield, but would have relied on rumour and the reports of
informers. On the other hand, even rumour usually has a grain of truth in
it, however garbled it has become in the telling. So an archaeologist or
social historian must study most early sources critically. and balance the
value of the information they provide with the possibility that it may be
confused or sometimes even positively incorrect.
Later sources sometimes refer back to earlier periods, and traditions may
have been passed on orally before being written down. Again it is necessary
to evaluate the reliability of such sources. From the early medieval period,
around the eighth century AD onwards, documentary accounts become
more frequent. For example, there is a large body of documents including
laws, myths and legends from the Celtic western seaboard of Europe,
particularly Ireland, which originated as part of a larger oral tradition
which was not written down until the early Middle Ages: by that time they
had become augmented and distorted by the adoption of Christianity and
by the many other changes which divided the medieval from the prehistoric
world. Ireland itself was never incorporated within the Roman empire, and
social changes there may have been less marked than in Britain during
that period. There are many clear indications that the Irish sagas refer to
a prehistoric time of pagan tribal warfare, though it is usually uncertain
precisely when the remembered events took place, and details which are
crucial if they are to be used as historical sources may have become adapted
to suit the cultural expectations of the later listener or reader. This may be
particularly true of incidental detail, which is easily modified without
altering the essential aspects of the story but which tells us most about
social patterns and behaviour. If they are to be used to throw light on
prehistoric life, therefore, these post-Roman Celtic sources must be used
with considerable discretion. It would, however, be foolish to discount their
evidence altogether, since they are unique in giving us at least a hint of
the Celts' own view of the world, rather than a picture of pagan Celtic
society from a classical standpoint. 12
Jn all these sources references to women are comparatively rare, though
probably not as uncommon as many scholars would at first admit. Careful
analysis, with a view to discovering what they can tell us about the lives
of women. can certainly be very rewarding, and an attempt to use some of
the sources is made in Chapter 5 on Iron Age Europe.
The relevance and potential use of mythology as a source of information
about an earlier period is particularly problematic. Many feminist writers,
especially, have sought to use myths of a mother goddess to suggest that
at some time in the past women played a much more important role in
society. or even as supposed evidence for the existence of matriarchies.
22
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
Goddesses form part of the mythology of many societies, including those of
the Mediterranean civilisations and of the Northern European traditions.
Many, such as the Greek goddess Demeter, have special responsibility for
obviously female aspects oflife such as fertility, first of humans and animals
and then of plants and especially crops, but others, such as the Celtic
goddess M6rrfgan 13 and the Roman goddess Minerva, are goddesses of war
and other areas which are usually male-identified within the society itself.
A key question is how a belief in these female deities came about. Does it
relate to a distant memory of women, or a particular woman, whose roles
included overseeing war, for example? If an earth or mother goddess was
worshipped, possibly as the most important deity in that society, did women
once have high status? It may be useful to consider the distinction between
myths and legends made by anthropologists, even if it then begs the
question of whether a particular story or saga is a myth or a legend. While
a legend may embody a past event, albeit in very altered form, a myth,
among other functions, serves to explain some aspect of the natural or
human world. For example, every society asks how the world came about,
and has a myth which explains this in terms understandable to that society.
So just as everyone knows that women alone give birth to children, it is
not surprising that many societies will also explain that the earth and crops
are born from a supernatural female being of some kind. This need not,
however, have any implications for the roles of real women, other than the
obvious one of childbearing, and still less for their status. It cannot even
be taken as evidence that the society thought that giving birth to large
numbers of children was particularly advantageous, but me.rely shows that
the factual relationship has been observed! A deity may be worshipped or
venerated for the qualities she or he is held to embody, but even this is not
always so. Even if a goddess is held responsible for creating some aspect of
the world, and myths about her are retold, perhaps illustrated by pictures
or models, she may not be thought to play any active role in the day-today life of the actual society. Nor can myths be seen in any sense as history:
as an explanation, they may go back many generations, though the details
of a myth which is orally transmitted will change almost each time it is
told. There is, therefore, no obvious correlation between the existence of
goddesses and the roles and status of real women, and it is extremely
dangerous to use mythology as a source of evidence for history.
Archaeological evidence
Archaeological evidence for the lives of women in the past falls into various
categories. Probably the most obvious is that from burials, but settlement
sites and prehistoric art may also provide much valuable information.
Women in Prehistory
Ischium-pubis
index
•
•
•
..••:••..••••
•
•
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• • •
•• •• •
"
•
•
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Female
l 00\Xi
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. ... ..
.
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e
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ischium
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.
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.. .......
.. . . . ....
..........
•
.·:. .... ........
. . • Male
• . ..
• ..
. • • . ... ..• • • ••
•
•
.
.
•
• • •
.
/ • •
•
.
~
8()0
90°
70°
60°
40°
Sciatic notch
-~
~-'·v'\
"£
~·:':':
,..,i~/jl,
:L•'
' i·,..-......~:....
: ' ' '.
'
::\:~
marked
pre-auricular
Female
24
"".
,If
-. ·. " ...
-
absent
sulcus
Male
The Search for Prehistoric Woman
Burials, bones and grave goods
Iri burials where the skeletons or cremated remains of prehistoric women
survive, adult women can usually be distinguished from adult men by
looking at certain diagnostic bones, such as the skull and the pelvis.
However, there is considerable overlap in the limits of shape and measurement of these features for each sex, which can make reliable sexing of
skeletons difficult. 14 Studies of the bones themselves can also indicate the
approximate age of death of the individual and sometimes the cause of
death, as well as certain diseases she or he may have suffered from in life."
The age of an individual at death may be estimated by studying various
3 The diagnostic differences
between female and male
skeletons.
(Left) The range of variation
found in two measurements of
the pelvis, the proportion of the
iscbium-pubis index and the
angle of the sciatic notch.
(Right) Three differences in skull
shape:
i. the supra-orbital ridges,
ii. the nuchal crest, and
iii. the mastoid process.
After Brothwell, 1981.
ii
.
\...,,
,:·
~ .•:;t·;_~-..
iii
~~--
~
Female
Male
25
Women in Prehistory
anatomical features, including the degree of fusion of certain bones,
especially in the skull, pelvis and long bones, and from the amount of wear
or attrition on the teeth. Comparing the mortality patterns of women with
those of men may suggest differences in the care given to each when ill,
differences in health resulting from nutritional defects and benefits, and, in
the case of children, possible differences in the treatment of girls and boys.
Damage to bones, such as breaks, or arrow or dagger wounds, might be
seen to affect women and men with different frequency if, for example, one
sex but not the other hunted or fought. Diseases such as osteo-arthritis,
which are easily detectable in bones, may have affected women and men
differently if they regularly carried out different tasks. A recent study 1 5 of
the well-preserved skeletal remains of Canadian Inuit hunter-gatherers
from the turn of the last century concentrated on identifying which parts
of the body showed signs of bone and joint disease, especially osteo-arthritis.
and whether they were more prevalent in women or men. There was
enough ethnohistorical information about the people to know which activities were carried out by which sex. For example, women spent considerable
time preparing leather and sewing skins for clothing: this seems frequently
to have resulted in osteo-arthritis in the bones of the right hand, while
softening skins with the teeth often led to tooth loss and osteo-arthritis in
women's jaws. Men hunted with harpoons, which sometimes caused
disease of the right shoulder and elbow; kayak paddling also resulted in
distinctive wear of the bones. In a study of Neolithic skeletons from the
Sahara, 1n it has been suggested that it is possible to distinguish the effects
of frequent javelin throwing, wood cutting and archery by studying bone
lesions or rough patches of growing bone which form where frequently
used muscles or ligaments are attached to it. The incidence of different
activities amongst different societies or between women and men may be
distinguished, as well as the incidence of individual craft specialists within
a population. This method clearly has great potential for looking at differences in gender roles: while it might be possible to relate some types of osteoarthritis to specific activities. many activities may result in similar stress
patterns - for instance, grinding corn. scrubbing floors or polishing stone
tools may all cause 'tennis elbow' - particularly when the range of possible
activities is not already defined by other information about the society. as
it is in the first example above.
Although it may often happen that, for one reason or another, not all
members of a community were buried together, in cases where it is likely
that they were, a study of the whole cemetery may provide a wide range
of population statistics. Prom these it is possible to calculate whether women
generally outlived men, or vice versa, and to estimate the proportion of
women who died in childbirth, as well as the infant mortality rate, e.g. Fig.
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
34. If the sample is sufficiently large, the number of children each woman
would have borne can also be estimated.
Attitudes to the care of young children and babies are often reflected in
infant mortality. In societies in which one sex or the other is considered to
be more important or more valuable, deliberate or subconscious behaviour
by the parents may affect the incidence of infant death in females or males.
If, for instance, girls are more highly valued, the birth of a new female
infant may lead to the neglect of an older brother, and so occasionally to
his death. If this behaviour were regular within a society, we would expect
to find more boys than girls in the cemetery (but a similar pattern might
occur if dead female infants had such low status that they were not buried
in the cemetery at all!). In extreme cases a preference for one sex over the
other may give rise to preferential infanticide: in a cemetery this might be
observed either in the number of infant burials of a single sex, or in an
unnatural outnumbering of adults of one sex over the other. Again,
however, caution needs to be exercised and other possibilities considered:
for instance, death away from home may have been more common in one
sex than the other, or women and men may have been given different
burial rites.
In many societies, one way in which the status of individuals and the
different value placed on women and men is reflected is in the quantity and
quality of food they consumed. For example, where men are more highly
valued than women they may be given a very high proportion of the meat
or other protein available. Recent studies 17 have shown that analyses of
skeletal remains can reveal some aspects of diet, particularly nutrient
deficiencies. Infant and child mortality, in particular, may be caused directly
or indirectly by malnutrition. Of course, in many cases, the community
may not understand the cause of the disease or death, and may even resort
to treatments or changes in diet which further aggravate the problem. If
there is a shortage of milk or other foods, babies and children who are most
valued will be given the most. Thus, if either girls or boys are particularly
favoured, this may be revealed in different child death rates. Studies of tooth
wear and pathological deformities of the bones caused by malnutrition, and
chemical analyses of bones have also been used to find out, for example,
whether women and men were fed or treated differently. Of the chemical
analysis methods which are used, the measurement of the ratio of strontium
to calcium in the bones seems to be the most promising. 18 Plants absorb
strontium along with calcium, and when animals or humans eat plants
these minerals are ingested too. However, the animal's body discriminates
against the strontium, so that a smaller proportion of it becomes incorporated into the bones and body. If these animals are in turn eaten by
other animals, for example humans eating meat, the strontium is again
Women in Prehistory
discriminated against. The proportion of strontium in the bones of people
who have eaten a largely meat diet will therefore be considerably lower·
than in the bones of people who have eaten a mainly plant diet. This
technique has been used to study changes in diet through time on a
particular site, and comparing the findings with the quality and quantity
of grave goods may indicate whether people thought to be 'rich' or of 'high
status' on the basis of the grave goods ate more meat than other members
of the community. A number of studies have also compared the amount of
meat eaten by women and men within the same society. A difference in
diet might either be related to the different types of agricultural work with
which each sex was involved, or (on the assumption that meat-eating
implies higher status) might indicate a difference in status between the
sexes. Most of these studies have been carried out on prehistoric native
American skeletons, and have routinely shown that women do have higher
strontium/calcium ratios than men in the same communities, suggesting
that they do indeed eat a smaller share of the meat available. However,
this suggestion needs to be treated with caution, as it has also been shown
that pregnancy and lactation alter strontium levels, and, especially in
societies where most women would either be pregnant or breast-feeding
throughout most of their adult lives, this fact must be taken into account.
Although little analysis of this sort has yet been reported for European
prehistoric data, and clearly the results need to be critically studied, the
technique seeµis to be one of the most promising ways of studying differences in female and male work patterns and status.
Other techniques which might prove useful include carbon isotope analysis, which might be able to show if some members of a community were
eating certain plants, including the leaves of plants which contain the C3
form of carbon, while others ate grasses which contain the C4 form. 19
Differential care and nutrition of female and male children might show up
in radiographic analysis of bones, which can reveal transverse lines of
increased bone density, known as Harris lines, reflecting periods of malnutrition during growth. A study of a prehistoric Californian population
using this method showed that these lines were more common in modern
Americans, and that women and men had identical line patterns. As males
normally develop Harris lines more readily than females, it was suggested
that in this community women were less well looked after than men. 20
Wear on teeth can also be a very good indication of the type of diet to
which an individual or community was accustomed, and may also sometimes give evidence of working at certain crafts. The greater the amount
of abrasive material incorporated in the foodstuffs, the more wear will show
on the teeth, and chewing different materials will result in recognisably
different patterns of wear. So women's and men's tooth-wear patterns may
28
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
be different. either because of differences in status or because they were
primarily involved in different agricultural or food foraging tasks and then
mainly ate those products for which they were responsible. A study of
BC showed
prehistoric Californian hunter-gatherers of around 2000-1000
different wear patterns in the teeth of women and men, though in slightly
later horticultural communities the pattern of wear was the same for both
sexes. A small number of women, but not men, from one of the horticultural
communities had a rather unusual wear pattern which was thought to be
the result of holding or pulling fibrous materials with the teeth, such as in
basket-making. This, then, is very persuasive evidence for women being
responsible for a particular craft within that society. 21
Many prehistoric communities were accustomed to burying grave goods
with all or some of their dead. From these archaeologists may be able to
obtain a fairly clear picture of the artefacts associated with each sex and
the relative quantity of goods appropriate to the burials of male and females,
and thus to make hypotheses about the wealth and status of different
individuals and of women compared with men. There are, however, certain
pitfalls which such a study must avoid. Assumptions that the grave goods
were owned and used by the dead individual during her or his life must be
justified. The objects may have belonged to, and be gifts from, mourners or
relations, or reflect the status of the head of the household or family rather
than that of the deceased. Custom, ritual or fashion may dictate the types
of grave goods appropriate for different groups of people. While these may
relate to roles and status in life, they are perhaps more likely to reflect quite
different aspirations for life in an aft:erworld, or may even be an attempt by
the mourners to convey a deliberately false picture of the deceased and her
status to the onlookers at the funeral or to the spirits or deities of the
afterlife. But on the whole, most archaeologists are happy to base their
interpretations on the majority of ethnographic cases where there is some,
albeit tenuous, link between grave goods and the life of the deceased. 22
Perhaps the most obvious clue to differences between female and male
behaviour in a society is the presence in burials of any tools or other
equipment. For example, for much of the later part of prehistory, from the
Neolithic onwards, arrowheads, daggers and other weapons, used either
for hunting wild animals or in warfare, are regularly found in male rather
than in female burials. This seems to confirm the common assumption that
these activities were male-dominated even in the prehistoric period. It will
therefore be of particular interest if. even occasionally, an arrowhead or
spearhead is found in a female burial. However, even where such apparently
clear evidence has been found, the interpretation of the finds seems to have
caused problems. An example from the New World which has led to debate
is the discovery of atatls, or spearthrowers, in some female burials of the
29
Wome11in Prehistory
Indian Knoll culture who lived in the North American Midwest in the
second half of the third millennium BC. A variety of arguments were put
forward in the early literature to avoid the obvious conclusion that women,
as well as men, hunted: that they had a purely ceremonial function, that
they belonged to a platoon of Amazons, or that they were part of the
inheritance of some families or groups. 23 Another related problem is that,
until quite recently, once a pattern had been established for a particular
society, archaeologists often used the grave goods to identify the sex of the
burial, rather than achieving this by analysis of the human remains and
the grave goods independently, so exceptions to a rule might have gone
unnoticed. Individuals who performed other tasks or crafts such as agriculture, spinning and weaving or metalworking might also be buried with
--~
· ::~--
ij <\f::2
b
4 Burials of
women from
south Germany.
mid-second
millennium HC.
showing the
position of dresspins and other
ornaments:
a. Mi.ihltal,
b. Wixhausen.
c. Asenkofen.
From Piggott,
1965.
j{'.il'.\>'
l ..""c\
)~}
"·.·v:::, "J
(' C"''t"",
:..•·•,
.,,. :....., ,-\
a
C
'°b . : '
~~:
-{~
f:'..,
The Search for Prehistoric Woman
the 'tools of their trade'. Where this seems to be the case it may be possible
to identify which sex usually or invariably carried out a particular craft.
Dress is another area in which grave goods may provide particularly
valuable information. Where bodies were buried fully clothed with ornaments, it is often possible to obtain a very clear picture of gender differences.
In rare cases, such as some of the Danish burials from the Bronze Age and
Iron Age which have remained preserved in oak coffins or waterlogged,
the clothes themselves have survived (Fig. 3 2 ), though more usually only
metal or bone ornaments and fastenings are preserved (Fig. 4). The location
of brooches or belt buckles may give clues to what the clothes looked like
and such ornaments will themselves reflect differences in gender behaviour
within the society.
A major assumption which recurs in virtually all archaeological literature needs to be questioned in the present context. The grave goods found
with men are assumed to have been 'earned', or 'won' by the individual
and to reflect his own status, achievements or inheritance. On the other
hand, when a woman is found with elaborate grave goods, or ones reflecting
some activity usually carried out by men in our own society, these are
almost invariably attributed to the prowess of her husband or father. Even
where in a particular society women consistently have richer grave goods,
it is usual to read that the men chose to display their wealth as jewellery
on their wives or daughters. While by ethnographic analogy this may
frequently be the case, the possibility that the women achieved their own
wealth is hardly ever considered. The few serious attempts to rectify this
situation and provide some basis for establishing how a woman may have
acquired her grave goods depend on assessing the relative wealth of different
burials within a cemetery - a procedure in itself fraught with problems and then comparing the degree of wealth with the age of the individual. 24
If young girls and female infants are as likely to have rich grave goods as
adults, then it may be assumed that this wealth was inherited from one or
both parents, or some other relative (not necessarily the father); if women
become progressively wealthier as they grow older it may be argued that
the woman herself achieved that wealth, particularly if the pattern is not
exactly mirrored by increases in male wealth. If women over a certain age
usually have certain grave goods, while younger ones do not, it may be
argued that goods were transferred at marriage (although I have not seen
this argument used for male grave goods!) or reflect some age-related
change of status normal in that society. All possible interpretations of such
grave goods must be considered before any can be ruled out.
The location of burials within a cemetery, or the actual manner of burial,
such as the side on which the body is laid or the direction in which the
head is facing, might be determined by a wide range of factors, such as
Women in Prehistory
belief, status, cause of or age at death, or the sex of the individual. At some
periods and places, mounds (or tumuli) were constructed over burials, and
it may be possible to see that one particular individual was the first to be
buried within such a mound and other bodies subsequently buried around
it. Or it may be possible to tell from the layout of a cemetery that one
individual was the focus either .of the cemetery as a whole, or of a cluster of
burials. Very occasionally the possibility that a cluster of burials represents a
family group may be confirmed by the regular occurrence of a minor
physical deformity common to, and therefore inherited within, the group.
Studies which attempt to analyse the blood group of an individual from
bones are still in their infancy, but they may also be used to distinguish
family units within a cemetery. The relevance here of such techniques is
that if it is possible to recognize the focal individual of a group it will be of
considerable interest to know whether that individual is always male,
always female, or if no regular pattern is apparent. In such a case, too, in
theory at least, it should be possible to tell whether the individuals without
the genetic trait or different blood group are older females or males, and
thus whether it was women or men who moved into the family upon
marriage. As we shall see, matrilocality or patrilocality (moving to the
woman's or man's parental home respectively on marriage) is likely to
make a considerable difference to the roles and status of women in any
society.
Crafts and activities
A key question in the study of women in another society is whether there
is any division of labour within it, and if so whether different tasks carry
differences in status. One of the most obvious ways of studying this from
archaeological evidence is to look at craft tools found with burials of a
particular sex, as discussed above. Anthropological parallels may also
provide suggestions as to which sex was responsible for which activities in
a particular type of society, though without direct archaeological evidence
this will of course remain hypothetical for any individual past group.
We can also consider clues such as fingerprints on pottery. If fingerprints
remain on pottery they must have been impressed into the clay before it
was fired, almost certainly by the manufacturer or by her or his assistants.
Hypotheses about descent patterns and post-marital residence arrangements within past societies have been built upon assumptions that women
made all the pots. 25 Small fingerprints have been interpreted as belonging
to women potters (although they could equally well belong to young
assistants of either sex, the complete lack of big 'men's' fingerprints within
a large assemblage of pots might argue against the involvement of adult
.32
Women in Prehistory
men in potting). It is argued that women would have learnt the skills from
the older women in the community, and copied the shapes and decoration
from them. If they did not move away on marriage, and each family made
all its own pots, then all the pots found on a site are likely to be very similar.
If, on the other hand, women who had been taught to pot were dispersed
after marriage, each moving to her husband's home, far more variety of
style would be expected within each settlement site. This theory depends
on knowing the sex of the potters, and assuming they are all of the same
sex. If, however, there is any doubt about this, the ensuing arguments
clearly carry no weight.
In cases where the sex of the manufacturer of a particular commodity is
known from archaeological, or perhaps documentary, evidence, anthropological studies should warn us against having preconceived views about
the status conferred by this work. Spinning and weaving, for example, are
undertaken by women in some cultures around the world, and by men in
others. But the status derived from the craft also varies tremendously; in
some societies - usually, it seems, those in which the task is performed by
men - it is well regarded, whereas in others, often those in which women
are the spinners and weavers and where women have low status, the craft
confers no particular status on the craftswoman.
Settlement sites
For many societies early settlements provide the best source of archaeological evidence, and information about the shape, size and number of
houses is often comparatively easy to obtain. The types of artefact found
in a particular building or room may often enable its function to be reliably
determined. If it is known which tasks were allotted to which sex it may
be possible to work out which rooms or buildings were used, and thus how
much domestic space each was assigned. In a few societies, for example in
the Neolithic of the Near East, burials are placed under the floor or under
raised platforms, thought to be beds, in the corners of rooms. If it can be
assumed that the exact position represents a place within the house formerly
used specifically by the dead person, this may be another means of identifying the amount of space allocated to each sex, though it is also possible
that the relationship and implications of the burial position may be considerably more complex.
A number of hypotheses, generated by anthropological data and relating
to social organisation, have been based on the size and shape of houses. It
has been argued that where houses are round, polygamous marriage
patterns are more likely, and monogamous ones where houses are rectangular.2" Arguments for patrilocal or matrilocal post-marital residence
.34
The Searchfor Prehistoric Woman
have been based on house size, suggesting that patrilocal patterns are more
likely to result in small houses, whereas matrilocal family units are more
likely to prefer large houses. 27 These hypotheses and their implications for
Neolithic and Iron Age society are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.
Apart from burials, direct evidence for the presence of people of a particular sex on archaeological sites is rare. This is undoubtedly partly because
archaeologists have not usually tried to find it, but also because there are
few occasions when women and men will leave unambiguously different
remains. However, one very striking example showing where women had
been and where they probably had not been within a large settlement
comes from a waterlogged medieval site at Bergen, then an important
trading post on the Norwegian coast. 28 Extensive excavations in several
locations in the medieval town uncovered a number of latrine pits. The
contents of such pits are always of interest to archaeologists, because the
microscopic study of the remains of faeces often yields important evidence
of diet. Latrines were also useful places into which to throw unwanted items,
and precious objects such as rings or coins were sometimes accidentally but
irretrievably lost there. Jn Bergen it was common to find moss, which had
clearly been used as toilet 'paper', intermixed with remains of faeces. In
. some parts of the town, especially in domestic areas, small pieces of textile
were also sometimes found in the latrines, whereas in other areas, most
notably in the warehouse area beside the harbour, no such textile pieces
were found. The suspicion arises that the textile had been used as sanitary
protection, although it does not seem to have been possible to detect the
presence of blood. That these textile fragments may therefore indicate the
presence or probable absence of women in certain areas of the town is
strengthened by documentary sources for the Hanseatic League, of which
Bergen was part, which show that all the merchants were men.
This very clear example of the value of careful excavation, combined
with detailed, if fairly straightforward, scientific analyses of the excavated
materials and samples, has not, to the best of my knowledge, been paralleled
on other sites, and depends on the right conditions of preservation for the
evidence to be available. However, if such evidence were found on other
sites it could be used to study questions such as whether women or men
were restricted to certain parts of a settlement, or lived in separate houses.
Alternatively, we might find evidence for the practice, known from a
number of anthropological examples, of women spending the duration of
their menstrual periods away from men, or in complete isolation. Whether
this women's rite or ritual is seen as a chance for a rest from the daily toil
of life, and a time to be venerated by women, or from the male perspective
of the need for 'unclean' women to keep well away from men, is another
question!
35
The Search for Prehistoric Woman
ologists, but in other cases they may be suspected but not certain. Prehistoric art which does show gender differences is of course highly relevant
to'•the study of women in prehistory. Minoan art, for example (see Chapter
4), in which women and men are shown involved in different activities and
wearing different dress, provides the basis for much speculation about
gender roles in that culture. Modelled or carved figurines of humans, whose
sex is clearly apparent, are common in many early prehistoric societies in
Europe, especially of the Stone Age. In Palaeolithic Europe female figurines
predominate over male ones, and they are often obese and possibly
pregnant. The function of these figurines has been much debated, and is
discussed fully in Chapter 2.
A few general considerations need to be mentioned here. Although the
functions of art within society are frequently considered by art historians,
they are all too often ignored by archaeologists. It is very dangerous to
assume that depictions of women in particular contexts necessarily reflect
their true position within a society. A moment's thought about representations of women in our own society will make this obvious. Far from
having the aesthetic value of the statues and paintings of the classical world
or the Renaissance, pictures of naked women may be used for pornographic
purposes. The naked female figurines of the Palaeolithic are usually interpreted as goddesses or as having something to do with fertility magic, and
the assumption is then made that this is a reflection of the high status of
women in the society. But today, while images of women within the
Christian and especially the Catholic Church may represent one particularly
revered woman, the Virgin Mary, they certainly do not reflect the status of
ordinary women in contemporary society. Therefore, although prehistoric
works of art which depict women are a very important source ofinformation
about women in prehistory, they too, like any other source, must be studied
and interpreted with caution.
37
2
The Earliest Communities
The earliest periods of prehistory form a very significant contrast with the
later ones, and indeed with the whole of the rest of human history. The
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. or Old and Middle Stone Ages, are characterised
not so much by the use of stone tools which give these periods their names,
as by the means of subsistence which was universal at the time. Agriculture
had not yet been adopted, and all food was acquired by foraging, gathering
naturally growing plants and hunting wild animals. Today this distinctive
subsistence pattern is practised by only a very small number of human
groups; but several characteristic features which regularly accompany it
can be discerned from them, including a nomadic lifestyle, setting up a new
camp or homebase at frequent intervals, and much greater social equality,
both between women and men and between different families or people of
the same sex, than is typical of agriculturalists. There is good reason to
suggest that many aspects of the lives of modern foraging societies resemble
those of Palaeolithic people, so although there is little direct evidence for
how women lived at this period, we can argue by analogy with these
modern foragers about the role which Palaeolithic women may have
played.
The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic 1 spanned roughly 2-2.5 million years,
that is, about 2 50 times as long as all the rest of the prehistoric period:
even in Europe the period was about 15 times as long as all the rest of the
human past. During this time major changes in the climate and vegetation
of Europe occurred; the human as well as the animal population had to
adapt to them, and important developments in the human body and in
technological and social abilities resulted. The climatic variations ranged
from hot, dry, desert conditions in what is now Africa, where the earliest
stages of human evolution took place, to freezing glacial temperatures in
which very little vegetation grew and where the most common animals
were mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses and hyenas, to the wet, temperate
climate of north-west Europe in the Mesolithic, which encouraged the
growth of dense deciduous forest. Archaeologically, just as much variation
in the cultures and lifestyles of the first human populations can be expected.
The earliest stages of human evolution seem to have taken place in East
Africa, in the Great Rift valley, where the first recognisably human-like
beings split from other primates around 8 million years ago, and are first
seen in skeletal evidence between 4 and 3 million years ago. Although the
precise dating of the various chronological landmarks is the subject of
The Earliest Communities
fierce debate amongst specialists in the field, some other points in human
development include the first preserved tools around 2. 5-2 million years
ag·o, the first definite appearance of humans in Europe around 350,000
years ago, and the first humans who would have looked similar in all ways
to ourselves, that is the development of Homo sapiens sapiens, about 40,000
years ago.
Most of the evidence for the period takes the form of stone tools, used for
almost all daily activities and especially the acquisition of food. Hand axes
were probably used as a sort of all-purpose pocket knife in the earlier (or
Lower) part of the Palaeolithic. though in the later (or Upper) Palaeolithic
and Mesolithic more specialist stone tools were used for tasks such as
scraping clean animal skins, preparing plant foods, cutting wood, bone or
meat, drilling holes and hunting.
Animal bones are very frequently found on sites of the period, and this
has led archaeologists to make two major assumptions. firstly that all the
animals would have been wild. and therefore hunted, and that no animals
had yet been domesticated or were kept confined, and secondly, that meat
was the most important part of the Palaeolithic diet. The first is based on
the species of animals such as reindeer, red deer and bison, and on the
context in which they are found. Although scavenging the meat of dead
animals may have been common in the earliest stages, during most of
the Palaeolithic most animals were in fact probably hunted. The second
assumption arises from the profusion of bones on such sites; indeed, it is
often suggested that meat was eaten almost to the exclusioh of plant foods.
However, the occurrence of bones and absence of significant evidence for
plant foods is common everywhere in the archaeological record, and is a
reflection of the differential preservation of the evidence, rather than a true
indication of diet. Tnthe Palaeolithic and Mesolithic the question of balance
between meat and plant foods is particularly important, since it is often
argued that it reflects the relative importance of women and men as food
providers.
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites are frequently little more than collections
of stone tools and bones, but excavation in recent years has suggested how
the sites were occupied. Simple houses were built at some sites at this
period, though elsewhere only rough shelters or windbreaks were put up.
Natural caves were often occupied in the Palaeolithic period, but the small
quantities of human debris in these and on the open-air sites strongly
suggests that occupation at any one site was usually by only a small group
of people and was of quite short duration, perhaps from a few days to no
more than a few months. This picture equates very well with the ethnographic evidence of people living similar lifestyles today and in the recent
past. Present-day foragers, or hunter-gatherers, as people leading this kind
.19
Women in Prehistory
of life are commonly termed, almost always live in small nomadic groups,
moving as and when the various food resources determine. The similarity
of the archaeological evidence for the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic will be
examined in more detail with the relevant ethnographic evidence, and used
as the basis for arguing that the life of a Palaeolithic woman may not have
been very different from that of her modern counterpart.
7 Plan and reconstruction of the Upper Palaeolithic hut at Dolni Vestonice. Czechoslovakia, c. 2 3000 BC, constructed by digging out a slight terrace in the hill slope and
building a low wall in front. A few shallow holes indicate the position of upright posts
which presumably supported a light roof. Inside the hut were a hearth and a clay
structure interpreted as a kiln in which clay figurines were fired. From Wymer. r 9 8 2.
40
The Earliest Communities
The role of women in human evolution
Human evolution has traditionally been discussed in terms of the role
which 'Man the Hunter' played in devising weapons and tools for catching
and slaughtering animals for food, how he needed to walk upright on two
feet to see his prey above the tall savanna grass, and how he was more
successful than other species in his hunting exploits because he teamed up
with other men and learnt the value of co-operation. And what of 'woman',
meanwhile? Was she sitting at home, twiddling her thumbs, waiting for
'man' to feed her and increase his brain capacity and abilities until he
became 'Homo sapiens sapiens'? The argument went that as human evolution progressed, more and more time was needed to look after infants, so
females no longer had time to hunt, and male co-operative hunting became
essential in order that the men could bring enough food home to feed the
family. As a result, male-female bonding in monogamous unions was an
essential and a very early development. While most accounts of human
evolution have assumed that all the advances in human physical and
cultural development were led by men, a number of recent studies suggest
alternative possibilities and have pointed out the vital role which must
have been played by women.
Research into the earliest stages of human evolution is based on three
strands of evidence. Physical anthropologists study the remains of early
human skeletons, to assess the way in which they developed. For example,
it is possible to tell from the structure of the legs and back whether an
individual would have walked upright on two legs, or used the forearms
for balance. Changes in the size of the skull through time give an indication
of brain capacity. Secondly, the study of the behaviour of other animals,
and especially primates, particularly those species closest to humans such
as apes and chimpanzees, reveals some patterns which may have been
shared by the earliest humans before cultural norms began to play an
overriding part. For example, chimpanzees may be studied to see if males
and females eat or collect different foods, or to find out whether they share
any of the differences in child-care practices seen in human women and
men. Thirdly, archaeological evidence for tools, settlements, environment
and diet sheds light on the social and cultural development of the earliest
humans.
Some scholars with.in all these three areas have turned away from the
traditional male-dominated view of evolution and have begun to formulate
an alternative model, allowing that female primates and hominids have
played an important part, if not the key role, in the development of human
behaviour. Different authors have stressed different factors in this development. Adrienne Zihlman 2 argues that changes in the environment were
41
Women in Prehistory
crucial in necessitating social and economic changes in human populations
in order to exploit this environment efficiently. Sally Slocum 3 points out
that the only division of labour by sex amongst other primates is that
females take primary care of their young, while males'tend to dominate in
protecting the group. She argues that a division of labour in food collecting
is therefore unlikely to have been a key feature of early human behaviour.
Other feminist writers 4 suggest that the female's choice of a co-operative
and gentle mate was a critical factor in human evolution, as the chances
of survival were improved by caring more closely for near relatives: in all
mammals, and especially in primates, this is much more a female task or
trait.
Among the physical changes which took place in the early stages of
human evolution were increases in the size of the brain and the teeth: a
decrease in sexual dimorphism (difference in size between males and
females); increased hairlessness over the body; and bipedalism, or walking
on two feet, rather than using the forelimbs for support. as chimpanzees
and apes do. While an infant chimpanzee can cling to its mother's cover
of body hair, leaving her hands free for walking or carrying food, a young
human or early hairless hominid would need to be carried by the mother:
this seems a much more likely stimulus both to bipedalism and to the
invention of tools for carrying the infant as well as food than is the need
to see prey animals over tall savanna grass and to throw simple weapons
at them, which has been the traditional explanation for these changes.
A key aspect of the debate about the evolution of sex-role behaviour
centres on food collection. and the way in which females and males may
have foraged for different foods. Many discussions, including those written
by some feminist anthropologists, assume that from a very early stage in
evolution females primarily gathered plant foods, while males mainly
hunted animals. the pattern usual in modern hunter-gatherer societies.
Many recent arguments about other aspects of the role played by females
in human social and technological evolution depend on this belief, even
though it is rarely argued out fully. At one end of the scale other primates
show little evidence for differences in food collecting behaviour between
females and males, while at the other all modern foragers apparently divide
subsistence tasks on the basis of sex. The question, therefore. is when and
why this difference came about. and whether looking after young offspring
would have a limiting effect on hunting by females. One view' suggests
that although males unburdened by young might have caught meat more
often than females, a regular division of labour would probably have come
quite late in human evolution. as the physical differences between females
and males are insufficient to make one sex or the other more suitable for
either task. Recent work has also questioned whether meat actually filled
42
The Earliest Communities
a significant part of the early human diet, suggesting that this would have
been far more iike that of other primates, based almost entirely on a wide
rarige of plant foods. What meat was eaten in the earliest phases of the
Palaeolithic was probably scavenged, rather than hunted. Both these factors
are problematic for the traditional view, as they suggest that hunting was
neither an important factor in physical evolution, nor in the social and
economic balance between female and male activities. Both sexes would
have obtained vegetable foods and occasional meat, and brought some of
their day's collection back to the homebase for sharing.
If there was little division of labour in the earliest phase of human
development, when and why did it become usual? Two chronological points
may have provided possible contexts. Initially, hominids would have been
content to catch small game or to scavenge meat caught by other animals,
or to collect those that had died naturally, but perhaps around roo,ooo
years ago they developed suitable tools and techniques for hunting large
animals. While hunting small game would not have been hazardous, biggame hunting might often have resulted in death or injury to the hunter
rather than the hunted. In small societies, such as these early human
groups and present-day forager societies, every unexpected death is a
serious blow to the viability of the community, particularly the death of
women of child-bearing age. Mobility would also have been more important
in hunting large game; the hunter would have to move rapidly and quietly,
with hands free to throw a spear or shoot an arrow. It would not be possible
to do this while carrying a bag or basket of gathered food, nor a young
child, who might cause an additional hazard by making a noise at a
crucial moment. Thus gathering and hunting become incompatible as
simultaneous occupations; pregnant women and those carrying very small
infants would have found hunting difficult, though gathering is quite easily
combined with looking after young children. It is therefore possible that at
this stage women began to hunt less, until a regular pattern of dividing
subsistence tasks was established. 6
Another possible context for the origin of the division of labouri is the
change in environment which hominids found when they first entered
Europe. It is argued that this spread could not have occurred until the
perceptual problems of coping with a new environment had been resolved,
by splitting food foraging into separate tasks. During the Lower Palaeolithic
in East Africa, plants and animals would have been abundant, so vegetable
foods and small game would have provided plenty of easily obtainable food
with only the occasional large game caught to supplement the diet. As the
hominid population increased and went in search of new territory, some
hominids moved north into Europe. There they encountered colder conditions in which plant foods were harder to come by, so meat would have
43
The Earliest Communities
Meat cutting and butchering
-~Cl_
-"5
:
.
~<,
~
Boring
Adzing
9 Some Lower Palaeolithic flint tools from Hoxne, Suffolk, showing the way in which
they would have been used. This has been demonstrated by the method of microwear
analysis: microscopic examination of the edges of the tools can detect different traces of
wear depending on the use made of the object. The dotted lines around the flint indicate
the part of the flake that was actually used. From Wymer, 1982.
45
Women in Prehistory
On the other hand, more detailed studies of chimpanzee behaviour
suggest that there may be slight differences in the food collecting behaviour
of females and males of non-human primates, which could argue for an
early gathering/hunting division. 8 Although chimpcinzees eat very little
animal flesh, males make nearly all the kills and eat more of the meat;
however, termite fishing, involving the use of sticks as fishing rods to poke
into the termite mounds, a skilled task requiring patience and simple tool
use, is far more commonly carried out by females. Whether the 'changing
environment' theory or the latter argument is preferred, both hypotheses
suggest that a division of labour on the basis of sex would have been an
early development in human history.
Tool-using was once thought to be a distinctly human attribute, but in
simple form it is now known to be shared with several of the higher
primates, and even other animals and birds. Most early theories suggested
that tool-using by humans was intimately linked with hunting, which in
turn was assumed to be a male task, and that the earliest tools would have
been spears for hunting animals and stone knives or choppers for butchery.
This idea was partly encouraged by the archaeological evidence of the
early stone tools, most of which are thought to have had such functions.
However, this is partly a circular argument, as on the one hand the function
of these tools is far from certain. and many would have been just as useful
for cracking nuts or digging roots, and on the other, the very earliest tools
would almost certainly have been made of wood. skins or other perishable
material. Artefacts such as digging sticks, skin bags, nets., clubs and spears
can be made entirely of organic materials, and would not have survived,
so the extant stone tools are probably quite late in the sequence of hominid
tool use. The evidence of tool use by other primates and by modern foragers,
combined with a more balanced theoretical view, suggests that other factors
and possibilities need to be considered.
One of the most significant human tools must be the container. Whether
it be a skin bag, a basket, a wooden bowl or pottery jar, it allows us to
carry items around or store them safely in one place. The container may
have been one of the earliest tools to be invented. though unfortunately
there is little archaeological evidence to demonstrate this. Chimpanzees can
carry things in the skinfold in their groin, but when hominids became
bipedal this skin was stretched and the fold was lost. The use of a large leaf
or an animal skin, carried over one arm or the developing shoulder, or tied
to the waist. might have replicated this lost natural carrier. 9 One of the
most important things that a female hominid would need to carry would
be her young offspring. The complex interaction of bipedalism, food gathering, the loss of hair for the infant to cling to, and changes in the structure
of the toes which made them useless for clinging to its mother would have
Women in Prehistory
made it necessary for the mother to carry the child. The development of a
sling for supporting the infant, found in almost all modern societies, including foraging groups, is likely to have been among the earliest applications
of the container.
'
The first tools to aid in foraging and preparing foodstuffs are perhaps
more likely to have been used in connection with plant foods and small
animals than in the hunting of large mammals. The tools and actions
required for termite fishing, for example, are not unlike those required for
digging up roots more easily. Modern foraging groups often choose a
particularly suitable stone to use as an anvil for cracking nuts, which they
leave under a particular tree and then return to it on subsequent occasions.
Higher primates also use stones for cracking nuts, so it is very likely that
early hominids would have done this even before tools were used for
hunting. The role of women as tool inventors, perhaps contributing many
of the major categories of tools which are most essential even today, cannot
be dismissed.
The introduction of food gathering, as opposed to each individual eating
what food was available where it was found, was another significant
advance which would both have necessitated and been made possible by
the invention of the container. More food might be gathered than was
needed immediately by one individual, either for giving to someone else or
for later consumption. With the exception of parents feeding very young
offspring, this behaviour is unusual among other animals and presumably
would not have been common amongst the very earliest hominids, but
gradually developed to become a hallmark of human behaviour. Another
change would have involved carrying this food to a base, which would
imply both conceptual and physical changes, made possible by the use of
containers, and may also have made it necessary to walk on two legs,
leaving the hands free to carry the food, either directly or in containers.
The development of consistent sharing, not only with offspring but with
others in the group, and exchanging food brought from different environments of savanna and forest would have been a stage towards living in
regular social groups.
Environmental changes would also have led to social changes within
early hominid groups. In savanna grassland, as opposed to forest, it would
have been more difficult to find safe places to sleep overnight, and water
would have been harder to obtain. Once a suitable location was discovered.
there would have been a greater tendency to remain there as long as possible
rather than sleeping in a different place each night. thus introducing the
idea of a homebase.
Women also played a key role in social development. A major difference
between human development and that of other animals is the greater
The Earliest Communities
length of time during which infants need to be cared for and fed: this has
probably contributed to a number of human characteristics, including food
sharing and long-term male-female bonding. The sharing of food between
mother and offspring would necessarily have continued for longer in early
hominids than in other primates, and it is argued that when a mammal
too large to be consumed by the hunters alone was killed, the males would
have shared it with those who had shared with them in their youth, that
is their mothers and sisters, rather than with their sexual partners. This
argument is supported by a primate study 10 which shows that banana
sharing almost always takes place within matrifocal groups rather than
between sexual partners. This has important implications for the primacy
or otherwise of monogamy and marriage. Several scholars have also pointed
out that in this situation the female would choose to mate with a male who
was particularly sociable and willing to share food with his partner while
she was looking after a very young infant. As well as preferring those most
willing to share, females would choose those males who appeared to be
most friendly. Not surprisingly, female chimpanzees will not mate with
males who are aggressive towards them. The more friendly-looking males
would probably have been smaller, or nearer in size to the female, and would
have had less pronounced teeth, and therefore have been less aggressivelooking. Over thousands of years this female sexual preference would have
led to gradual evolutionary changes in favour of smaller, less aggressive,
males.
The stronger tie between mother and offspring caused by the longer
period of time during which human infants need to be cared for would
have resulted in closer social bonds than are found in other species. The
primary bond between mother and offspring would be supplemented by
sibling ties between sisters and brothers growing up together. Older offspring would be encouraged or socialised to contribute towards the care of
younger siblings, including grooming, sharing food, playing and helping
to protect them. The natural focus of such a group would clearly be the
mother rather than, as is so often supposed, any male figure. Moreover,
this group behaviour would lead to increased sociability in the male as well
as in the species in general. The role of the female, both in fostering
this increased sociability in the species and as the primary teacher of
technological innovations during this long period of caring, must be recognised.
An increase in human sociability, and particularly female sociability,
would have had a number of other positive side-effects. As a result of a
mutual willingness to share food and food resources, each individual would
have had more access to overlapping gathering areas when a particular
resource was abundant. This in turn might greatly increase the chances of
49
Women in Prehistory
the offspring being well fed and therefore surviving, and thus of the survival
of the species in general. As the ability to communicate precisely increased
with the development of language, it would have become possible for
humans to have ordered social relationships with mare individuals and
other groups. This would have evolved into a pattern very similar to that
found in modern foraging groups, many of which include distant relations
who regularly meet up with other groups in the course of their annual
movements. Males who had moved out of the matrifocal group in order to
mate would have learnt a pattern of friendly contact with their ancestral
females when they met them in the course of their foraging.
It can therefore be argued that the crucial steps in human development
were predominantly inspired by females. These include economic and
technological innovations, and the role of females as the social centre of
groups. This contrasts sharply with the traditional picture of the male as
protector and hunter, bringing food back to a pair-bonded female. That
model treats masculine aggression as normal, assumes that long-term, oneto-one, male-female bonding was a primary development. with the male
as the major food provider, and that male dominance was inherently
linked to hunting skills. None of these patterns, however, accords with the
behaviour of any but the traditional Western male. Other male primates
do not follow this pattern, nor do non-Western human groups, in particular
those foraging societies whose lifestyle in many ways accords most closely
with putative early human and Palaeolithic cultural patterns. We will look
at these modern foragers in more detail in the next section.
Women in modern and Palaeolithic foraging societies
It has been estimated that over 90 per cent of people who have ever lived
have been foragers. However, foragers now make up less than o.oo 3 per
cent of the world's population. In the past. particularly in the Palaeolithic
and Mesolithic, foraging peoples were able to use large tracts of land,
choosing the most favourable environments available at the time. Today's
foragers are forced to live in the extreme environments which no other
groups are able or want to use, and are frequently restricted to much smaller
areas than they need in order to allow the environment to regenerate fully
while. they utilise another area. Today very few groups of foragers are
completely uninfluenced by technologically more sophisticated groups. or
by the politics of the nation states. And apart from these more overt
differences it must always be remembered that, unlike the Palaeolithic and
Mesolithic peoples, modern foragers have developed their culture over the
same length of time as the people of the Western world. and in many
respects are just as sophisticated as any other groups. These factors make
so
The Rarliest Communities
any analogy between them and Palaeolithic and Mesolithic foragers uncertain; indeed, some archaeologists reject any attempt to make such analogies,
particularly where details of social or religious life are concerned. Nevertheless, the obvious similarities between the two groups lead me to believe
that it is justifiable to use modern foragers as a basis for a picture of
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic life, albeit with due caution, where direct evidence is unavailable. It is, however, to be hoped that it will be possible to
test the model in the future against data from new archaeological research.
Today's foragers are widely, if sparsely, scattered around the world, and
the extreme environments in which many live closely match those of
various Palaeolithic and Mesolithic societies. The Inuit, or Eskimo Indians
of northern Canada, live in the extremely cold tundra, which is not dissimilar to the cold phases of the Upper Palaeolithic in much of Europe,
although the difference in latitude and therefore in the amount of daylight
would always mean that vegetation in the Arctic would differ from that of
Europe. The !Kung of the Kalahari desert of southern Africa and the
Australian aborigines, by contrast, live in an environment very similar to
that in which the earliest stages of human evolution took place, while the
Mbuti pygmies of central Africa live in tropical rain forests which are
probably not unlike some of the hot phases, or interglacials, between the
cold phases of the Ice Age. Despite these huge variations in environment,
numerous similarities exist in the social organisation of all modern foragers,
and we can therefore have confidence in the hypothesis that early foragers
also shared similar patterns of organisation.
Foragers are often referred to as 'hunter-gatherers'; this term arises from
the two major facets of their diet - meat which is hunted, and plant foods
which are gathered. Although we shall consider some important exceptions,
these two tasks are almost always divided between women and men:
women gather and men hunt. and in the previous section we considered
why this division might have come about in the earliest stages of human
evolution. The term 'Man the Hunter' is also commonly used, and the
implication is that man's principal food is meat, and his principal occupation hunting; this has been assumed to be invariably a male task which
gives the men high status. It has been shown, however, that this view is
not entirely correct, and may be largely a reflection of the interests and
preconceptions of nineteenth-century Western male anthropologists and of
the status of hunting as an upper-class pastime in nineteenth-century
Europe. The diet of modern foragers has been studied intensively in recent
years and the results of this work have had important implications for
understanding the position of women in these societies, and by analogy in
the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. In all but the extremely cold ice and snow
conditions in which the Inuit or Eskimos live, forager diets comprise a high
sr
Women in Prehistory
proportion of plant foods, supplemented with a small proportion of meat
as and when it can be obtained. The range of plant foods available in most
environments is greater than the modern Western imagination allows for.
As well as the more obvious fruit, nuts, leaves and roofs, the stems, bark,
rhizomes and bulbs of many species are edible, not to mention fungi,
seaweed and other water-plants, which are tasty and nutritious. Furthermore, the gathering of plant foods in most environments is much
more time-effective and reliable than the hunting of animals. In most
communities the traditional picture of men hunting large wild animals
seems to be correct, but large quantities of plants are gathered by women,
who will also pick up small animals such as lizards and turtles, as well as
insects and eggs. Women in forager societies, therefore, are the major food
providers, and this is recognised in the status given to them. Perhaps the
most significant contrast between forager societies and almost all others in
the modern world is the equality between individuals found there, which
contrasts with the very marked variations in status found in most other
societies, particularly between women and men.
The most intensive studies on the diet of foragers have concentrated on
the !Kung of the Kalahari. 11 The exceptionally wide range of plant foods
available even in a desert region causes some surprise. Roots, leaves, berries
and shoots of many different plants are eaten, though preference is given
to a few species, including the highly nutritious and readily available
mongongo nut. It is estimated that plant foods make up 60-80 per cent of
the diet by weight of the !Kung and virtually all of this is supplied by the
women, who gather enough food to feed themselves, their young children
and aged relatives, and also their husbands, if the men return to the
camp after an unsuccessful day. Like the women, the men will pick and
immediately eat much of their daily food but they will not bring any plant
foods back, whereas the women will return to the camp laden with bags
or baskets. It must not be thought, however, that this gathering is an easy
task, because although shortages are rare and it does not usually take
long to gather sufficient food, great knowledge and skill are required to
distinguish those plants which are edible from poisonous species, and to
notice sometimes very slight above-ground traces of roots growing below
the surface. It takes the !Kung women comparatively little time to gather
the day's food, and as surpluses cannot be stored there is little point in
gathering more than will be consumed within a day or two. On average,
240 calories of plant food can be gathered in one hour, whereas. taking
into account the high failure rate of hunting, it has been estimated that
one hour of hunting produces only 100 calories of food. Plant foods are
eaten every day and the women will ensure that some food is always
available. The successful killing of a large mammal, however, is an
52
Women in Prehistory
a very low proportion of plant foods. The extreme environment in which
they live poses special problems. Whereas a characteristic of all other
forager societies is that food is not hoarded or saved, the Inuit store food
over winter, preserving it either by smoking or freezing in the ice. Skins
need to be prepared for making into clothes, whereas in warmer climates
foragers typically wear very few clothes, or none. These special tasks have
become the role of women, while, as in other forager societies, the men
hunt.
Can we assert that Palaeolithic and Mesolithic women gathered large
quantities of plant food, and as a result enjoyed greater equality than most
women today? Three questions arise. Firstly, was the diet in the Palaeolithic
and Mesolithic balanced in the same way as that of today; secondly, if it
was, were tasks alloted in the same way, and thirdly, did this confer similar
status on women?
To judge the balance of diet from archaeological evidence is, as we have
already discussed, extremely difficult. One of the main features of most
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites is a profusion of animal bones. many of
which show clear signs of butchery. So meat was clearly a part of the diet.
but the fact that it is the only food for which we have definite evidence
does not prove that it was the most important one. While work on Neolithic
and later sites now often includes sieving or flotation studies of soils in
which small quantities of plant remains may be found, this is less common
on forager sites as there is less expectation that seeds or other plant products
will be recovered. This attitude will obviously reinforce the existing picture.
rather than throw new light on the question.
The animals represented at any site depend mainly on the climate, but
usually include a high proportion of deer, either reindeer or red deer. In
the colder phases of the Palaeolithic, mammoth. woolly rhinoceros and
horse prevailed, while at warmer times and further south, roe deer, ibex
and chamois were important. In the dense woodland of the Mesolithic of
temperate Europe, red deer. pig. elk and aurochs were more common. All
these are big mammals, with large bones which under most conditions of
preservation will remain intact and will be easy to find on archaeological
sites. The smaller animals such as lizards and turtles, as well as birds and
fish, whose bones are relatively small and fragile. and also eggs, are much
rarer finds on most excavations, yet they form a significant part of the diet
of most modern foragers. However, bones of these creatures are found on
sufficient sites to show that they were also eaten by Palaeolithic and
Mesolithic communities. Fish bones, for example, often include deep-sea
and river species such as cod, haddock, pike, salmon and carp, to name
but a few from a wide and varied list. At Shanidar cave, a site in Iraq first
occupied in the Mesolithic. snails, river clams and tortoise are among the
54
The Earliest Communities
species which seem to have been eaten, and the shells of shellfish are
commonly found, discarded in huge mounds or middens, at coastal sites in
northern Europe.
It is very rare to find evidence which shows whether it was women or men
who foraged or hunted for these animal foods, although anthropological
accounts suggest that in most modern forager communities hunting is
primarily carried out by men. In traditional societies it is also usual for a
person using a particular tool to have made it themselves. Conventional
archaeological wisdom seems to assume that Palaeolithic men would have
made and used stone axes. One may, however, cite a few instances which
contradict this pattern and remind us that the rule is not invariable. The
lives of women of the Tiwi group of Australian aborigines, who still lead
traditional lives on Melville Island, share tasks in an unusual way. While
men are concerned with fishing and procuring food from the sea and the
air, women forage and hunt for all forms of 'land food', including land
mammals. Until the introduction of steel tools, their principal tool was the
stone axe, not unlike those used in prehistoric Europe, which they used for
a variety of tasks including stripping bark to make baskets and striking
death blows to prey animals. Significantly, the women themselves made
these stone tools. 16 In the archaeological record there is also at least one
instance which strongly suggests that women took part in subsistence
activities other than gathering. In contrast to the example of the Tiwi,
prehistoric women appear to have fished, at least at the time and in the
area of the relevant find. In coastal areas of Scandinavia, in the Mesolithic
and continuing into the Neolithic, there is considerable evidence of fishing
in coastal waters, both from fishbones which suggest that small cod, of up
to 30-40 cm in length, was the main species caught, and from bone or
boar's tusk fishhooks. The cemetery of the Neolithic site of around 3000 BC
at Vasterbjers in Sweden contained the skeleton of an adult woman buried
with a fishhook. However, another male Scandinavian burial also with a
fishhook shows that fishing was not exclusively a female preserve. 17
Another product highly prized by modern foragers is honey, since it is
normally the only sweetener available. This, too, would leave no archaeological trace, so the depiction of a person gathering wild honey from a
tree in a wall-painting in a rock shelter at Cuevas de la Arana, Bicorp,
in eastern Spain is particularly interesting. 18 Although the person has
sometimes been described as a man, other commentators interpret the
figure as a woman, identified by large buttocks and perhaps also by the
flowing hair, which seems to be much longer and thicker than that of the
stick-like, sometimes phallic male hunters in other paintings there. The
exact date of the group of Spanish wall-paintings to which this belongs is
uncertain, but it almost certainly falls somewhere between 7000 and
55
Women in Prehistory
This, then, is very satisfactory evidence, not only for the collection
of honey in the early prehistoric period, but also for its being a woman's
task.
If it is to be postulated that Palaeolithic and MesolitHic women enjoyed
similar status to modern forager women, arid that at least by the time
Europe was colonised this status was related, to a certain extent, to the
high proportion of food they provided, it would be helpful to be able to
produce evidence that a lot of plant foods were eaten. Of the plant foods
which are most frequently preserved, nuts, or at least their shells, come top
of most lists, and would have been an important source of protein. The
amount of evidence for other plant foods depends almost entirely on how
4000
BC.
,c
12 A Mesolithic rock
painting from Cuevas de la
Arana, Bicorp, Spain.
depicting a woman with a
basket gathering wild honey
from a hive in the top of a
tree. After Obermaier, r <:PS-
56
The Earliest Communities
much attention was paid to the question when the site was excavated: if
wet sieving or froth flotation techniques have been used to sift out minute
traces of carbonised plant remains, some evidence that vegetable products
were eaten is almost always found to be present. Although the evidence
for the earliest phases in Africa is slight, the important site at Kalambo
Falls has provided remains of palm nuts and syzyium fruits. In the colder
periods of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, when more extreme environments prevailed, the choice of plant foods may not have been very great.
though the vegetation in the higher latitudes of Europe would always have
been greater than that available to today's foragers within the Arctic Circle.
Towards the end of the period, however, especially in the Mesolithic, a wide
range of plant foods is attested. Temperate Europe, during the Mesolithic,
was dominated by mixed oak forests, and the marked seasonal changes
and variety of environments provided by sea, river and lakesides and
different altitudes would have allowed a wide choice of foodstuffs. On
archaeological sites hazel-nut shells are often common, and water chestnuts
have been found in some places. Other species are less frequently preserved,
though this does not necessarily mean that they were less frequently eaten.
Species represented include yellow water lily at Holmegaard (an important
Mesolithic site in Denmark), bog-bean, fat hen and nettle at the British site
of Star Carr, and raspberry at Newferry in Ireland. 19 In the Mediterranean
region, which as today enjoyed a hotter, drier environment, a greater
variety of nuts, such as pine-nuts, pistachio, almonds, chestnuts and
walnuts, would have been available, and pollen either from wild cereals or
from other large grasses has been found in human faeces from Icoana in
the Danube Gorge in Romania; at Franchthi cave in Greece wild barley
and oats were eaten, along with three varieties of legumes and two of nuts.
Other evidence which suggests that plant foods were particularly important
comes from the Mesolithic site of Teviec, in Brittany, where the tooth-wear
patterns of skeletons was thought to be caused by a plant rather than a
meat diet. 20
Neither the collection of plant foods nor their preparation leaves much
trace in the archaeological record. This problem is compounded by the
probable multi-purpose nature of many Palaeolithic tools and the uncertain
use of most flint and stone tools prevalent throughout the Palaeolithic and
Mesolithic. Although it used to be asserted that the function of most tools
was related to meat and skin preparation, the possibility that some were
used in the preparation of plant foods has recently been discussed. A study
of the microwear (minute traces of tool use which are only apparent under
a very high-powered microscope, see Fig. 9) on the stone tools from a 1.5million-year-old site at Koobi Fora in Kenya indicated that they had been
used for working plant materials, 21 though other studies of similar material
57
Women in Prehistory
<;i<:)Q\)<:j'\<::J~<\'\';i\J
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13 Various ways in which microlith flints can be hafted, resulting in very different
tools, including graters, scrapers, a fish-hook, harpoons and arrows, and (bottom left)
knives and sickles. After Clarke, I 9 76.
have so far proved inconclusive. The almost universal flint of the Mesolithic
period is a tiny worked flake, known as a microlith. These are often only
fingernail-sized, but are found in a variety of shapes. They formed part of
composite tools or weapons set into wooden handles or hafts, as is shown
by rare instances where the wood has been preserved, such as from the
Shanidar cave in Iraq, or where careful excavation reveals the original
positioning of microliths in relation to each other. Although reconstructions
usually depict them as multi-barbed arrows, these archaeological
examples - as well as very similar tools found in ethnographic contexts show the very wide range of uses to which these tools could have been put.
In the Mediterranean, microliths are often found associated with seedgrinding stones, suggesting they may have been used for related functions,
such as cutting the stems of wild grasses or shoots. Roots could have been
58
The Earliest Communities
cut with heavier. straight-edged composite knives, or grated with microliths
set in rows in a flat board. David Clarke. 22 who first pointed out the wide
range of possible uses for microliths, therefore suggests that the large
quantity of these flints found in Mesolithic contexts might imply an increase
in the importance of plant foods in the diet, rather than a change in hunting
techniques. If it is taken that women rather than men were the principal
plant-gatherers, this might also imply an increase in the status of women
in the Mesolithic.
Perhaps one of the most characteristic features of most modern forager
societies is their nomadic lifestyle. The small social group, or band, which
may vary in size from as few as six to over fifty people, moves its homebase
as often as is desirable to maximise the ease with which food can be
obtained. When the supply in the immediate locality of a homebase becomes
exhausted, there comes a point at which it is more efficient to move than
to have to travel out from the base in order to obtain food. This point may
come after only a few days in one location, or after several months. There
is often considerable seasonal variation in the length of time foragers will
remain in one place. For example, during the spring and autumn the !Kung
will only remain in one spot for about two or three weeks, whereas during
the dry season a homebase near a source of water will be used for up to
six months. 2 3 One result of these short stays at any one place is that it is
hardly worthwhile to invest much effort in building houses or shelters.
Typically, and especially when a very short stay is anticipated, rudimentary
shelters are built, or even none at all. The Australian aborigines. living in
a hot. dry environment, seldom build any kind of shelter, while the houses
of the !Kung differ according to whether the season is hot or cooler. Other
foragers, including the Palaeolithic people of Europe, would sometimes
choose natural shelters, such as caves, where they were convenient. and
these may not have required any modification. All these houses would be
very difficult to recognise archaeologically: few posts or other structural
features are dug into the ground, and the shelter itself is made entirely from
organic materials such as branches, reeds or skins and would therefore
leave no trace. Moreover, the short time of occupation means that little
refuse accumulates. This has two effects: from an archaeological point of
view, it is a further problem in recognising foragers' homebases. as refuse
often provides the main focus of archaeological information on any site;
but from the point of view of the inhabitants of the site, forager home bases
are likely to be much more hygienic than the permanent homes of many
farming communities. As a result, contagious or epidemic diseases are far
less of a problem for foragers than for agriculturalists, since they move
a way before water sources become polluted and refuse tips become the
breeding grounds for all sorts of pests and insects. Coupled with the very
59
Women in Prehistory
varied diet of most foragers compared with the limited diets of many
agriculturalists, where one or two crops provide a high proportion of daily
subsistence, most foragers lead relatively healthy lives.
Archaeological evidence suggests that this nomadic lifestyle was also, on
the whole, typical of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. It is possible, however,
that in the temperate environment of the Mesolithic of Europe, which would
have been much more favourable than that enjoyed by most foragers today,
some sites may have been occupied for much longer, or even more or less
permanently. This could have led to several social adaptations more typical
of the succeeding Neolithic phase taking place earlier than has been
thought. However, most archaeological sites of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic are typical of short-lived occupation; in some phases caves were
occupied, while elsewhere 'open-air' sites are found. Sites are often recognised by one or more hearths, which would have been used for cooking,
to sit around in the evening and to ward off predatory animals, surrounded
by a usually quite small quantity of refuse, including food debris and waste
flakes from tool-making. Occasionally evidence of. for example, stake-built
huts or shelters is found. The extent and spread of the debris gives an
indication not only of the length of occupation, but also of the size of the
group which occupied the site. Further indication of the length of stay may
be provided by a study of the ages of animals killed and the types of
vegetation represented, which may indicate in which season or seasons the
site was occupied. As an example, we can take the site of Terra Amata
on the Mediterranean coast of France, 24 which dates from the Lower
Palaeolithic, around 400,000
years ago. The remains of a shelter were
found, with an oval setting of stones thought to have held the bases of
branches bent over to form a central ridge. Inside the shelter were hearths
and areas where tools were made. Pollen from fossilised human faeces
indicates that the site was occupied in late spring.
An aspect of modern forager life which is of particular relevance to
women is the careful spacing of childbirths invariably practised by these
societies. Typically, a mother will not have another child until the youngest
is three or four years old. Many explanations have been put forward for
this. Some argue that this is the natural result of the child's total dependence
on breast milk until it is able to eat normal adult food at the age of about
four, as the cereal products onto which children in agricultural societies
are normally first weaned are not readily available in most forager societies.
Continuous breast-feeding on demand tends to suppress ovulation in the
mother and thus prevents or reduces the likelihood of her becoming pregnant during this time. Others believe the spacing of births may be a
deliberate policy, as the mother would not be able constantly to carry
around more than one child unable to walk the long distances which the
60
The Earliest Communities
forager lifestyle entails. This could be achieved by the use of herbal abortioninducing or contraceptive drugs - of which many traditional societies have
a 'dear knowledge - or by infanticide. Whether this birth spacing was
practised in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic is difficult to determine. It is
sometimes possible to estimate the number of children a woman has borne
from the pelvic bones of a skeleton; however, to the best of my knowledge
this has not been estimated for any Palaeolithic or Mesolithic skeletons.
Social equality between women and men is a key feature of modern
forager societies. and is usually attributed, in part at least. to the fact that
each sex provides an equal share of the food. Archaeological evidence for
social structure can be obtained from burials and the grave goods associated
with them (see Chapter I). The very few burials known from the Palaeolithic
or Mesolithic show interesting patterns, though it is not always easy to
know how to interpret them. 2 s Although we know of only thirty-six burials
from the whole of the European Middle Palaeolithic, and not all of these
are sufficiently well preserved to be identified by sex, a clear pattern does
emerge in the presence or absence of grave goods. Nearly all men are buried
with stone or bone implements or animal bones. or are covered in ochre,
14 A reconstruction of the Lower Palaeolithic hut from Terra Amata, Nice. France,
c. 38000 BC. The size (approximately 8 x 4 metres) and shape of the hut were indicated
by the distribution of stones and debris. From Wymer, r 982.
61
Women in Prehistory
while none of the female burials has any surviving grave goods. In the
Upper Palaeolithic, when considerably more burials are known. approximately equal numbers of women and men are buried with grave goods,
though in the Mesolithic period men, and especially Older men, are once
again more likely to receive special treatme-nt. being buried with ochre,
antlers or stone artefacts. One interpretation of these differences in female
and male burials might be that the social equality found in modern foraging
societies did not exist in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, and that men
received grave goods while women did not because men had higher social
standing. On the other hand, if women had grave goods of organic
materials, perhaps offerings of selected plant foods rather than joints of
meat, and tools or ornaments of wood, these would not have survived.
Alternatively it may be argued that women and men in modern foraging
societies often wear different ornaments or items of clothing, and use
different tools because of their different tasks, and yet their social status is
equal, so perhaps it is not wise to use the few and modest Palaeolithic and
Mesolithic grave goods to jump to any too hasty conclusions.
The life of a Palaeolithic or Mesolithic woman may have been quite
pleasant. An often-quoted phrase describes modern foragers as the 'original
affiuent society', where everyone has sufficient food and there is little stress
and jealousy as everyone has equal access to the very few commodities
available. 26 By analogy with modern foragers, except at periods when the
environment was particularly harsh. food would probably have been readily
available. If women were. on the whole. responsible for gathering plant
foods and perhaps small animals, this may not have taken many hours a
day. Unlike hunting, which depends on quietness, plant gathering could
be quite a social activity, carried out by all the able-bodied women of a
band working together. Young children could play round about. receiving
attention whenever necessary. or remain at the homebase with elderly
relatives. The preparation of the gathered plant foods is another task which
is usually performed by women among present-day foraging groups: nuts
need to be shelled, and roots and tubers may be baked or roasted in the
ashes of a fire. Although the building of whatever shelters are used is often
a women's task in modern forager societies. there are few other domestic
tasks; again by analogy with modern foragers, with the exception of very
cold climates, the total lack of or very little clothing. the short duration of
settlement in any one place and the small number of possessions of necessity
typical of foragers would have minimised the need for virtually all the
household tasks which twentieth-century Western living demands - even
if not necessarily carried out by women!
The Earliest Communities
Matriarchy, patriarchy or equality
Oµe of the biggest debates in anthropology in the nineteenth century,
which has been revived by modern feminists, was about whether there was
ever a time when women were dominant over men as men dominate
women in patriarchal societies. A matriarchy would be defined as a society
in which women not only have equality with men, but also control. power
and dominance. Modern feminists and nineteenth-century and modern
anthropologists have sought an answer to the problem by looking for
present-day societies which approach such a state. Most serious scholars
have seen that there are no societies today where women are regularly
in the prime positions of leadership, and consequently question whether
matriarchy could ever have existed. But the answer lies in the realm of
prehistoric time, and must therefore be seriously addressed here, although it
is difficult to see what direct archaeological evidence might be forthcoming.
Within Europe and the Western world, as will become clear in subsequent
chapters. patriarchy was well established by the time that written records
first appear in the fourth millennium BC in Egypt and the Near East.
Although it will be argued that changes in social organisation took place
during the early prehistoric period, if a matriarchal society ever existed in
the distant past it must have been during the Palaeolithic, and the subject
must therefore be seriously considered by any archaeologist interested in
feminism or social organisation in general. This was appreciated by the
renowned archaeologist V. Gordon Childe, writing in 1951, 27 though he
rejected the possibility of recognising either matriliny or matriarchy in the
archaeological record and pointed out that although small female figurines
have been taken as such evidence, it is unlikely that they are any better
an indicator of matriarchy than are images of the Virgin Mary in our
undeniably patriarchal society. Many archaeologists today, however,
would hesitate to reject with such certainty any possibility that evidence
for matriarchy might yet be found, even if it is not clear quite what form
such evidence might take.
The suggestion that matriarchal societies existed before a take-over by
men was first put forward in the mid-nineteenth century by two scholars
working from very different evidence. Johann Bachofen, a German classical
scholar, based his arguments (in Das Mutterrecht. 1861) on the archaeological remains of female figurines which he took to be goddesses and
especially on classical mythology, where some women are depicted as
having considerable power and where descent is sometimes seen to be
matrilineal. 28 For example, Bacho fen points to examples in the Homeric
and other Greek myths where matriliny is suggested. Oedipus, a penniless
exile, becomes king by marrying the widowed queen Jocasta, and Menelaus
63
Women in Prehistory
becomes King of Sparta when he marries Helen. Both these instances imply
that the women have inherited their respective kingdoms.
Lewis Henry Morgan, a leading American anthropologist and author of
Ancient Society, 1877, was one of the first scholars to.make careful studies
of many native North-American peoples. He-saw that in some of these. for
example among the Iroquois (see Chapter 3), women had far higher status
than in his own society and were dominant in aspects of the economic
sphere; they played a crucial role in ritual and political activity, and descent
was often reckoned through the female line (matriliny ). Morgan argued
that an original pattern of descent through women was overthrown by
men when people first lived a settled existence and the accumulation of
property became common. Morgan's arguments were taken up by Friedrich
Engels in The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884).
His theory was that women at first controlled the communal property of
the family, but that when agriculture was introduced, men used, and
therefore owned, the farming tools, especially ploughs and domesticated
animals. Men thus became the first sex actually to own private property.
In order to pass this on to their children, they had to introduce monogamy
so that they could control the descent system. The role of the male in
reproduction, which might not have been fully understood in a foraging
society, would have been clearer once animals were kept in captivity, and
it was perhaps observed that females would not breed unless they had
contact with male members of their species. In a matrilineal system anything a man owns is inherited by his matrilineage, and so would go to his
sister's children rather than his own; moreover. his children would belong
to his wife's matrilineage. Under a system of patriliny. however, a man
could have s~xual monopoly over his wife, and economic or legal monopoly
over her children. As a result women were subordinated economically. and
restricted sexually. 29
Like many scholars since, these early writers failed to make fully the
crucial distinction between matriarchy, matriliny and matrilocality. Many
societies today practise matriliny (descent reckoned through the female
line) or matrilocality (where a married couple moves to the home of the
woman's family, rather than the man's). But in all these societies men act
in positions of leadership, which is usually considered the essential aspect of
social organisation distinguishing patriarchy from matriarchy or equality.
Bachofen also made the assumption that female deities described in classical
mythology referred to an historical epoch of matriarchy. or at least that
there was a direct relationship between the two. Both these points are
controversial. rn
In the last decade or two. feminist scholars have revived an interest in
the question of matriarchy. Anthropologists have re-analysed the evidence
The Earliest Communities
for the position of women in societies existing today and those for which
we have records written over the last few centuries. Most agree that no
societies currently in existence can really be described as matriarchal,
especially if this is defined as the exact opposite of patriarchy. However, at
the same time as anthropologists point out that no such societies exist,
most feminists doubt whether this would result in the Utopian past or
future which they are seeking. Some anthropologists argue that although
no truly matriarchal society exists now, such societies may only have died
out or changed to patriarchy in the last few centuries, under pressure from
outside. Early observers may have missed the true nature of other societies
by assuming that men were the leaders and therefore the people with whom
they should have initial contact, or by only observing or recording aspects
of life of interest to themselves, such as warfare or hunting, rather than
accurately reflecting the real character of the society itself.
Other anthropologists have taken an alternative viewpoint; they have
looked at a range of traditional societies and found that the status of women
is regularly higher in forager groups than in any other type, but that these
societies are far from being a mirror image of patriarchy. 31 Their social
organisation is based on equality between individuals and between the
sexes. Everyone has equal opportunity to put forward suggestions and have
them listened to. and every individual has the right to make her or his own
decision about what to do in any particular instance. Obviously it will
usually be preferable to go along with the majority, but if the band is split,
for example over which area to move to next. each group may go off in a
different direction with no hard feelings. There may, too, be one or more
people in the band with outstanding skill in a particular task, perhaps
gained through age and experience, whose opinion may be respected over
those of others. However, this will not extend to other matters, nor will
that individual be deferred to further if she or he is seen to have lost her or
his skill or judgement. One key to this equality is the lack of private property
or possessions within the society, and the impossibility for a nomadic
forager band of storing food. One person cannot therefore own more than
another, nor can dependence or debt to another build up in a way which
makes oppression and submission a likely outcome.
Although in forager societies the differences between female and male
tasks are not fixed or binding in the same way as they have been in the
Western world until very recently, and there is quite a high degree of
overlap, there does seem, on the whole, to be a fairly fixed division between
the sexes in subsistence tasks and especially the provision of food. This,
as we have seen, is probably related to the demands of childbirth and
childrearing. 32 The key factor seems to be that women provide as much if
not more food than men, and as a result of searching for it, they have equal
65
Women in Prehistory
knowledge of their territory and contact with other people; the importance
of women's role as producers of the next generation in societies whose
populations are small and could fall below a critical point is also appreciated.
Women are therefore seen to be as important members of the community
as men, and their tasks, though different, are rated as highly as the male
skills of hunting.
Mother goddesses or Venus figurines?
Prehistoric human figurines dating from various periods are found in
several parts of Europe and have attracted considerable attention over the
last century. They have often been discussed as a single phenomenon,
despite the fact that they cover an immense time-span, from the Upper
Palaeolithic (c.25000 BC) to the Bronze Age (c.2000 nc), include many
variations on the basic theme and should not necessarily be interpreted in
the same way. I will do the same here, discussing the Neolithic figurines
as well as the Palaeolithic ones, before considering other aspects of the
former period in the next chapter. The female figurines have been considered
almost to the exclusion of the male ones. This has led to the notion of a
Mother Goddess worshipped and represented by idols throughout prehistoric Europe. Two aspects of this concept need to be examined here.
Firstly, the figurines themselves must be reviewed. Where and when were
they made? In what context are they found? Do they represent women
exclusively, and is there sufficient similarity in their design and context to
suggest that a single explanation is plausible for all the figurines from all
over Europe? Secondly, the evidence for the belief in such a Mother Goddess
needs to be considered, along with other possible interpretations.
Most of the figurines belong to one or two phases. Those from the Upper
Palaeolithic are often referred to as 'Venus figurines' (from the Roman
goddess of fertility), and come from a wide area of Europe stretching
from Western France to Russia. A second, larger and more diverse group
belonging to the Neolithic period is found in the Mediterranean islands and
in Eastern Europe. We will examine these two groups separately before
considering a range of possible explanations for them.
The art of the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe falls into three categories, the
best known of which is perhaps the cave paintings from France and Spain
depicting the animals that were hunted. Secondly, there are bone and stone
objects with carved or engraved designs, often of animals; and thirdly, the
'Venus' or 'Mother Goddess' figurines. 33
Over sixty Palaeolithic female figurines have been found in widespread
locations in Europe. A few are made of moulded baked clay or carved in
bas-relief, but most are carved from softish stone or in mammoth ivory and
66
The Earliest Communities
••
• • ••
'
··:
..
Lespugue
.....
..
• •
Kostienki
•
~
--
,_
-
•;:~.
- . ,:
'
• One figurine
• Several figurines
15 Map of the distribution of Venus figurines, showing contemporary (solid) and
modern (dashed) coastlines, and areas covered by ice sheets (shaded). After Champion
et al., 1984.
are between 4 cm and 2 2 cm in height, mostly at the smaller end of this
range. They show remarkable uniformity in style, and all are characterised
by very large breasts, large buttocks and thick thighs. Other parts of the
body, such as arms, feet and facial features, are sketchily represented or
absent, and the women are naked, though some seem to be wearing
ornamental girdles or chest bands. The care and skill with which these
figurines have been executed varies considerably: some have clearly had a
great deal of effort expended on them, while others appear to be very
roughly made. They have been found from the Pyrenees in the west as far
east as the river Don in Russia, an area of over 2,000 km from south-west
to north-east, and seem to belong to a narrow timeband in the Early Upper
Palaeolithic between around 25000 and 23000 BC. 34 Most are associated
with houses or homebases, and they are usually found singly amongst
assemblages of flint tools and debris, though sometimes, as at KostienkiBorchevo on the river Don, several have been found together.
Among the best known are the baked clay figurines from Dolni Vestonice
in Czechoslovakia (Fig. 7), which were found amongst domestic debris in
a hut, along with bone and flint remains. In another hut on the same site
Women in Prehistory
16 Venus figurines:
a. Dolni Vestonice,
Czechoslovakia (baked
clay);
b. Lespugue, Haute
Garonne, France
(mammoth ivory):
c. Willendorf, Austria
(limestone);
d. Sireuil, Dordogne,
France (calcite);
e. Balzi Rossi, Italy:
f-g. Kostienki, CSSR
(mammoth ivory).
Approximately half
actual size. From Wymer,
1982.
e
was a kiln thought to have been used for baking or firing such figurines,
as well as clay models of animals. This is particularly noteworthy, as it is
the earliest evidence of clay firing. Another well-known figurine is the
'Venus of Willendorf' in Austria, carved from limestone and 11 cm high;
she has carefully arranged hair or a head-dress, but no facial features. Her
arms are laid across her breasts, but her legs end just below the knees. The
southern French examples from Abri Laussel and Abri Pataud are carved
in bas-relief, and are considerably larger than the portable figurines. The
Laussel example is 44 cm high and holds a horn in one hand, while the
other rests on her stomach. Also from the same rock shelter, however, is a
male figure. the presence of which must be taken into account when the
function of these figures is considered.
Although the female 'Venus figurines' must be seen to form a group.
they should also be considered as part of a much larger, and usually
neglected, series of carved figures of Palaeolithic date. Some. but by no
68
The Earliest Communities
means all, of these are female, though most have naturalistic rather than
exaggerated proportions, while others are clearly male, and most appear
to· be sexless. 35
The second group of clay or carved prehistoric figurines dates from the
Neolithic period. The introduction at this time of clay for pottery-making
provided a new medium for the sculptor, which allowed far more detail
and flexibility in the figurines than was possible in the Palaeolithic, when
they were normally carved. The distribution and eventual decline in importance of these figurines may shed interesting light on the changing status
of women during the early prehistoric period. They are found throughout
much of Europe and in south-west Asia, including especially south-east
Europe and the Mediterranean islands from the Cyclades in the east,
through Crete to Malta and Majorca in the west, but interestingly not in
central or north-west Europe. Although many of these figurines are of
female form, it cannot be ignored that animal models are also sometimes
found. Moreover, many figurines show no obvious sexual characteristics,
and although male figures also sometimes occur, like the animals they are
often left out of the discussion. Many of the figurines from each area and
island in the Mediterranean have specific characteristics which mark them
out from those of other areas; also the contexts in which they are found
vary from one area to another.
One of the groups of European Neolithic figurines which has been studied
in detail is that found on the island of Crete. These figurines belong mainly
to the Middle and Late Neolithic, from around 5 500 to 3000 BC. Many
authors have linked the Cretan Neolithic figurines with those of later,
Minoan, Crete, which will be considered in a later chapter, but a number
of important contrasts have been noted by Peter Ucko in a wide-ranging
discussion of the interpretation of prehistoric figurines. 36 Although thirtythree figurines are definitely female, six are clearly male and another forty-
17 Neolithic figurines from
Crete:
a. Petra tou Limniti (height
18 cm);
b. Ayia Mavri (height
16 cm).
After Ucko, 1968.
Women in Prehistory
two are without sexual features. The existence of even a few male figures
makes the interpretation of the females as an all-important 'Mother Goddess' difficult, without allowing the possibility of the equal existence of a
male deity. Do the sexless examples represent child:r-en, or 'humanity'?
Unlike figurines from other places, the Neolithic Cretan female images do
not have particularly marked sexual characteristics. They were nearly all
found in rubbish pits or piles of debris outside houses. None come from any
context which might be regarded as a shrine, and none from burials,
though no tombs are actually known from this period in Crete.
Another remarkable series of early Neolithic female figurines comes from
Anatolia (modern Turkey). This area is particularly important as it is one of
the few areas in which fertility cults and a 'Mother Goddess' are historically
attested at a later period. The site of ~atal Hi.iyi.ikis of especial interest in
this context, and the implications of the symbolism of the figures have been
discussed by the excavator and other authors. 37 The site lies in the Konya
plain of Anatolia, and is the largest Neolithic site in the Near East. The
village or town, with an estimated r ,ooo houses and perhaps a population
of around 5,000-6.000,
was occupied over a long period, from around
62 50 to 5400 BC. The figurines fall into two groups. The first have crudely
shaped female forms, with pointed legs, stalk-like bodies and a beaked or
pointed head. They are found tucked into crevices in the brickwork or
shrines, but never actually inside them. The second group are carved
in stone or clay, and do come from shrines. They include a variety of
representations of both men and women. The men have penises; the women
have breasts and some seem to be pregnant. While most are naked. some
are clothed. A series of plaster reliefs on the walls of the shrines depict
women giving birth to bulls' heads. The only humans represented in this
way are women, and the excavator thought that men might be represented
by bulls and rams.
Another site of similar date and in the same area, Hacilar, 38 has also
produced a number of clay statuettes. None of these represent animals. and
the human figures fall into two categories. Twenty-five figurines are clearly
of women, while another twenty have no breasts or other sexual features.
The excavator of the site, James Mellaart. considered these to be representations of younger women, though other scholars have been less
certain about whether one particular sex was intended. Many of the figurines are described as steatopygous. meaning that they have over-large
buttocks, but Ucko i 9 has pointed out that these are not out of proportion
with the other, ample dimensions and stomachs of the figurines. Unlike at
('atal Hilyiik, the figurines were found inside houses. and were therefore
presumably kept there, rather than in communal shrines.
The figurines from the Cycladic islands -include representations of both
The Earliest Communities
18 Two Cycladic figurines:
(left) from Amorgos, c. 3200-2800
rr.rcm);
(right) Spedos type. c. 2800-2300
20.9 cm).
British Museum.
RC
HC
(height
(height
71
Women in Prehistory
women and men. 40 They cover a wide chronological span from the early
Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, and it is possible to see typological
changes from simple clay models to the highly schematised figurines,
characteristically with folded arms, carved from local-marble in the Bronze
Age. In contrast to the Cretan figurines, they have usually been found in
graves, rather than on settlement sites. Although male figures do occur,
most of the representations are of women, some of whom may be pregnant.
Most have very stylised faces, their arms folded below the breasts, and an
incised triangle representing the genital area. We do not know whether
these female figurines were buried with women or men, or whether the
possibly pregnant figurines were perhaps buried with women who died in
childbirth, though these are questions which future excavation should be
able to answer. Some are carved in semi-relief, giving a flat appearance,
while others are more naturalistic. Others again, particularly of the later
phases, show people, who always seem to be male, involved in activities
such as playing the flute or the harp and hunting. Interpretations of the
Cycladic figurines have been varied. It has been suggested that they may
have been designed to satisfy the sexual appetite of the deceased; that they
were substitutes for human sacrifice, images of venerated ancestors, or toys
to amuse the dead. Often they are seen as images of deities, perhaps a great
Mother Goddess or one who would care for the dead on their journey to
the underworld. Although none of these theories outweighs the rest, some
questions may help to strengthen one or other of them. If the figurines are
intended to give satisfaction to the dead, why are examples - however
simple - not found in all graves? Often they seem to have been put into the
grave in a manner not particularly suggestive of reverence, such as one
might expect towards a deity. Sometimes broken images are found in the
graves, which may suggest that they were used in funerary or other rituals
before being placed with the dead.
The function of both the Upper Palaeolithic and the Neolithic figurines
and the significance they had for the societies which made them have been
the subject of much speculation and debate. As the majority of them are
representations of women, their interpretation is clearly central to our
theme. Most of the Palaeolithic figurines show marked similarities, which
strongly suggest a common meaning and linked social or religious tradition
throughout Europe. By contrast, in the Neolithic the figurines of each
separate area have different distinctive features. and so although at a very
basic level they may all have a link - which may be merely a common
ancestry in the Palaeolithic figurines - each group needs to be considered
separately, taking into account the detail and the context in which they
are found in each culture. It certainly cannot be assumed that every human
figure modelled in prehistory had the same function. 41
72
The Earliest Communities
As we have seen, there are significant differences between the Palaeolithic
'Venus' figurines and those of the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Also,
because in most ways the contrasts between the Neolithic figurines of
different areas of the Mediterranean are more notable than the similarities,
it has been argued that it is unlikely that the whole area shared one belief
system or common set of meanings. On the other hand. in recent times
large areas of Africa were populated by completely autonomous, and
sometimes hostile, tribes which nevertheless shared many characteristics
of ritual and religion. even if each tribe manifested the belief in a slightly
different way. As the same arguments, ethnographic analogies and considerations are relevant for discussing the numerous possible interpretations
for the figurines of both phases of the Stone Age, these will be considered
before turning back to think about specific groups of figurines.
The majority of writers discussing the Palaeolithic 'Venus' figurines
emphasise their sexual characteristics, especially the large breasts and
pubic triangle, and the fact that many of them may be pregnant. These
figurines may, however, simply depict women who to our eyes would be
obese; yet this obesity may have been a highly desirable state to generally
thinner, less well-nourished women. These characteristics, it is often
argued, demonstrate that the figures are concerned with fertility. Fertility
is much more important to small societies who are dependent on maintaining a constant birth-rate simply for their survival than to larger societies
in the modern Western world. Two lines of argument have been taken.
Some people believe that a goddess of fertility or a Mother Goddess is
represented, while others have suggested that the figurines are part of
sympathetic magic rituals aimed at making individual women pregnant.
The likelihood of a significant continent-wide cult of a Mother Goddess
has been greatly exaggerated. 42 However, the worship of a fertility goddess
is attested in historical records in Anatolia, some several thousand years
after the Neolithic figurines were produced in the area, and this strengthens
the possibility that the earlier Anatolian figurines are representations of
the same goddess, particularly when their form and context are examined. 43
If this interpretation is correct, is a single goddess represented in different
postures and forms, or is a series of different goddesses intended? It does not,
however, automatically follow from this that every figurine in prehistoric
Europe must be interpreted in the same way. A universal religion based on
a specific female goddess is unlikely in a society such as that of Palaeolithic
Europe, both because it assumes closer and more detailed contact between
different groups over a wide area of Europe than is implied by links in other
aspects of material culture, and particularly because religion based on
deities would be very unusual in similar societies today. The belief systems
of forager and other small-scale societies, who are closely in touch with the
73
Women in Prehistory
natural world and whose own social systems are based on greater equality
than that of later socially stratified societies, typically centre on general
spirits and forces, rather than on personified gods and goddesses. Such
beliefs in deities are characteristic of, for example, the classical Greek and
Roman world and have inspired archaeologists to refer to the Palaeolithic
figurines as 'Venus' figurines by analogy with the Roman goddess offertility.
They are typical of complex societies where social stratification and craft
specialisation is closely mirrored in the 'pecking order' and special tasks
assigned to the deities. While the origin of the classical belief systems is
worthy of consideration in its own right, it seems unlikely that such a
system would have prevailed in the Palaeolithic and early Neolithic periods.
By analogy with other social and economic changes in the later Neolithic
and early Bronze Age (see Chapter 3), these periods are probably more
likely to have provided a context in which such cults could have originated.
Another interpretation of the Palaeolithic figurinesH stresses the domestic context in which many of the Venus figurines are regularly found,
often near hearths in some of the earliest huts and houses. A link is made
between women's role within the family and home and as 'fire-makers' in
many traditional societies. The figurines are thus interpreted as spirits, if
not images of 'goddesses', connected with protecting the newly 'invented'
home and hearth.
A related interpretation which has sometimes been put forward for the
later figurines is that they represent votaries, or priestesses, sometimes in
a particular attitude of prayer. sometimes taking part in actions appropriate
to the worship of the relevant deity. As argued above. religions involving
deities, let alone priestesses with specialised functions, imply a political and
social organisation far more complex than that likely to have existed at the
periods in question.
The figurines might also represent pseudo-historical characters who
formed part of the mythology or explanatory framework of the society. In
parts of Africa, for example, figurines are used as teaching aids in initiation
ceremonies, to illustrate characters in myths or to demonstrate appropriate
behaviour within society. After use these models are thrown away, and
might thus be expected to be found in contexts similar to those of the
Neolithic Cretan figurines. The predominance. even if it is sometimes overemphasised, of female representations would then be particularly interesting. Could they perhaps have been used in women's ceremonies, or to
explain pregnancy to girls at puberty? Or, if they represent specific historical
or mythical women, do they argue for the importance of women within
the history and mythology of the society? It may be objected that even if
women are revered within a religious context such as in the modern
Catholic world, this may give little indication of their true status within
74
The Earliest Communities
society. But this objection has also been counteracted by the suggestion' 15
that there is a much closer link between ideology and behaviour in egalitarian than in hierarchical societies, where inequality and exploitation are
deliberately veiled by ambiguous and contradictory ritual and rhetoric.
The use of figurines in sympathetic magic 46 to aid fertility is attested in
many ethnographic examples, and may have been perceived as even more
important in societies where the link between male impregnation and
childbirth was not fully understood. A woman wishing for a child would
make, or have made, a model either of herself pregnant, or - more commonly in known ethnographic examples - of the hoped-for child. perhaps
shown as the adult they would eventually become. She might then carry
the image around, perhaps sleep alongside it, or use it to perform other
rituals. Amongst several North-American Indian tribes, such as the Zuni,
a woman wanting a baby carries a model around. keeps it in a cradle or
places it on an altar until she becomes pregnant. After the successful birth
of a child the model is in some cases thrown away and in others carefully
kept by the mother to ensure the child's future prosperity. In some West
African groups it is common for a pregnant woman to carry a model on
her back, while among other peoples in the area, such as the Senufo,
fertility figures are given to children at puberty; they are looked after and
eventually buried with the individual upon their death. The sex of the
desired child might be specified by the model. or left undefined. The small
size of some of the prehistoric models would make them easily portable.
The fact that both the Palaeolithic and many Neolithic figurines are commonly found within houses or homebases, and often among debris, would
strengthen this possibility if the image could be cast aside once it had
fulfilled its function, while the idea of discarding the image of a specific
deity seems less likely. If some of the early prehistoric figurines are intended
to depict a desired child, the implication of the dominance of female ,figurines, followed by sexless representations over male figures, would have to
be that girls were more highly desired than boys, while some parents were
indifferent to the sex of their child.
In some modern societies figurines are commonly employed in other
forms of sorcery and magic. To do harm to an individual it might be
necessary to carry out an equivalent action on the model, such as breaking
it to imitate death, or sticking pins into it to represent wounds. Alternatively,
a model might be used for good, such as healing, perhaps by anointing it
with a particular substance.
On the other hand, more mundane explanations of the figurines are
possible. For example, in many areas of the world figurines are played with
by children as dolls, and such an interpretation of some of the prehistoric
models cannot be dismissed. The use of cheap materials such as clay, the
75
Women in Prehistory
occurrence of animals as well as humans in some areas, and the apparent
carelessness with which they are sometimes disposed of makes this a
possible hypothesis for some of the groups of figurines.
Clive Gamble 47 has looked at a rather different aspect of the Palaeolithic
figures, which is not necessarily incompatible with any of the interpretations which we have discussed. He emphasises their role as a means of
communication, linking far-flung communities through a common symbolism. The date of the figurines coincides with the period of maximum
glaciation, when communities would have needed extra social safety nets
to cushion imbalances in resources. The figurines come from open-air sites
and rock shelters rather than from the deep recesses of caves, suggesting
that they could be viewed, and therefore their 'message' read, by anyone
at any time. This interpretation might be considered additional and complementary to whichever hypotheses are preferred for explaining why the
'Venus figurine' was chosen as the medium for communication, even if the
implication of a far-flung and important link is accepted.
We have now considered a range of possible interpretations for the
figurines of all periods, and it is clear that 'mother' or fertility goddesses
are by no means the only possibilities. We have also seen that some
interpretations are more or less likely for some groups of figurines, due to
the context in which they were found, whether in graves or in domestic or
rubbish deposits, because of the cheap or, on the other hand, the rarer or
harder-to-work materials out of which they are made, or the regularity of
distinctive features of the body form or posture. The social, environmental
and economic contexts of the societies which produced the Palaeolithic and
the Neolithic figurines are very different: the contrasting roles of women
as food-providers in each society must be considered, and the huge chronological gap between the two groups must be appreciated. The Palaeolithic
figurines are the products of hunter-gatherer
communities living in
extremely cold climates, on the edges of the glacial ice-sheets, where meat
probably acquired largely by men would have been a mainstay of the diet.
whereas the Neolithic figurines were made thousands of years later within
simple agricultural societies, where, as we shall see in the following chapter,
women played the key role in food production. It is therefore not necessary
to use any one explanation to account for all the figurines. And, as with
any works of art, their role in creating and reinforcing a particular ideology,
which might not relate directly to the actual role of the object portrayed,
in this case women, needs to be borne in mind. The reader must in the end
make up her or his own mind, and only be aware of the problems involved
in the interpretation of any archaeological material. Whichever interpretation is preferred, the dominance of female representations over male, even
where the forms are not uniquely female, must be significant.
3 The First Farmers
From the point of view of the lives of women, the Neolithic period is perhaps
the most important phase of prehistory. As we saw in the last chapter, it
is likely that at the end of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, women enjoyed
equality with men. They probably collected as much, if not more, of
the food eaten by the community and derived equal status from their
contribution. But by about four thousand years ago, in the Bronze Age,
many of the gender roles and behaviour typical of the Western world today
had probably been established. The implication is that the crucial changes
must have taken place during the Neolithic period.
The chief characteristic of the Neolithic was the establishment of agriculture in south-west Asia and south-east Europe, perhaps around the
seventh millennium BC or earlier. The innovation progressively spread
across Europe, until it became established in Britain by the fourth millennium BC (Fig. 23). Numerous other inventions and adaptations in lifestyle seem to have occurred more or less at the same time. These include
the change from a nomadic to a sedentary settlement pattern, the invention
of pottery and the use of polished stone tools. It is likely that important
social changes followed from these developments.
The discovery of agriculture
One of the most momentous changes in the history of the human species
was surely the domestication of plants and animals - the invention of
agriculture. The social consequences of the switch from foraging to agriculture would have been as far-reaching as the economic consequences, but
not all the implications of this change would have been realised for many
generations or even centuries. The transition from foraging to farming
would have made profound differences to nearly all aspects of the lifestyle
of prehistoric women and men. Rather than moving around in search of
food, the discovery of agriculture allowed, or perhaps necessitated, a sedentary lifestyle. It would also have given rise to, or perhaps was precipitated
by, an increase in the size of the population. There is a lot of discussion in
the archaeologkal literature about which of these changes were causes
and which effects, and why the changes came about, or were adopted
eventually over almost the whole of Europe. The discovery of farming
techniques has usually been assumed to have been made by men, but it is
in fact very much more likely to have been made by women. On the basis
77
Women in Prehistory
(atal Hi.iyiik
_\)
•
·
1
i Chemi Shanidar
u
/f;i(Abu
Hu
:-:
richo
ijl
Einkorn wheat
r.-:·!'--:•~·
Euphrates
;;::::;/Barley
~ Emmer wheat
0
200
-WO km
19 The natural distribution of the wild cereals emmer and einkorn wheat and barley.
with the key sites in the early history of agriculture in south-west Asia. After Bender,
1975.
of anthropological evidence for societies still living traditional foraging lifestyles and those living by simple, non-mechanised farming. taken in conjunction with direct archaeological evidence, it seems probable that it was
women who made the first observations of plant behaviour, and worked
out. presumably by long trial and error, how to grow and tend crops.
This transition from foraging to farming, which marks the change from
the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic or Old and Middle Stone Ages to the period
known to archaeologists as the Neolithic or New Stone Age, seems to have
taken place initially in south-west Asia some time after 10,000 BC. By
6000 BC farming was well established throughout that part of the world.
From there the ideas and skills of agriculture spread throughout Europe.
Over the last decade or so, tremendous steps forward have been made
by archaeologists in discovering when and where agriculture first came
about, and some of the stages by which the transition happened. 1 Scientific
methods of dating, especially radiocarbon or C14 dating, have allowed us
to ascertain the date by which fully agricultural. sedentary populations
were living in various parts of Europe and south-west Asia, and palaeo-
The First Farmers
botanical and zoological studies have shown which plants and animals
were first domesticated. The earliest agricultural communities lived in the
areas often known as the Fertile Crescent, around the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates, now within the modern countries of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria,
Jordan and Israel, where the grasses which were to be domesticated grew
wild. 2 Other archaeologists argue that human groups could have evolved
through the stages of transition to agriculture quite independently over a
very much wider area, possibly including parts of south-east Europe. In the
early phases at sites such as Ali Kosh in Iran, ~ayonii in Anatolia and
Jericho in Israel, wild cereal seeds and animal bones have been found which
differ in the detail of their form or morphology from their domesticated
successors, whereas in the later phases at the same sites the same species
-(J
) -0-~.;
.
'
.
-,,.
'
'-'
20 The difference
between wild and
domesticated wheat:
ears and grains of a.
wild einkorn (Triricum
boeoticum) and b.
domesticated einkorn
(T. monococcum). After
Bender, 1975, and
Cole, r960.
79
Women in Prehistory
occur in their domesticated form. One of the key sites is Mureybet in the
Euphrates valley, where about 200 round houses were built on low-lying
land. The site is located at least roo kilometres from highlands, which are
thought to be the nearest location where wild cereals would grow naturally.
The presence of wild wheat and barley seeds at Mureybet, therefore, is most
easily interpreted as evidence that cereals were brought as seed corn from
the higher land and planted near the site, at a date of around 8 5 oo8 ooo BC. 3 A similar case, but even earlier in date (about 9 5oo-8 Soo BC),
occurs at the site of Abu Hureya, about 2 5 kilometres downstream from
Mureybet, where wild einkorn wheat was found in immediately 'preNeolithic' levels, but would not have grown naturally in the area. A study
of seeds of weeds found with the wheat, however, showed species typical
of the vegetation of the area around Abu Hureya rather than of the higher
land away from the site, and strengthens the hypothesis that the cereals
were being grown locally. 4
How and why did this change to agriculture take place, and, more
particularly, what can we say about the role of women in this process?
In the last chapter we discussed foraging societies still living in the world
today. They gather and hunt food in a way similar to Palaeolithic societies
before the invention of agriculture; among these people there is a regularly
recurring pattern of food procurement. As we have seen, women are mainly
concerned with gathering plant food, which provides the bulk of the
diet of nearly all foragers, while men spend much time hunting animals.
Although animal products form an important source of proteins in the diet,
meat actually makes up a relatively small proportion of the food intake of
these societies. We can also study other groups of people in places such as
New Guinea and parts of Africa who still grow crops and keep animals
with the aid of only the very simplest technology, in much the same way
as we may imagine Neolithic societies would have done. These societies do
not use ploughs or artificial irrigation, and they keep few, if any, animals.
To distinguish them from people using more mechanised agricultural technologies, anthropologists usually call this type of farming horticulture, and
the people using it horticultural societies. By studying the way of life of
these groups and considering the type of archaeological evidence that
would remain from their various activities. and comparing this with the
actual archaeological evidence for the earliest farmers in Europe and southwest Asia, some insight can be gained into lifestyles in Neolithic Europe.
The problems involved in using ethnographic examples as a model for
past societies, and in particular for considering possible gender roles in the
past, have already been discussed and must be borne in mind here. But
in addition to the more general difficulties associated with making such
comparisons, a number of significant differences between Neolithic and
80
The First Farmers
modern horticulturalists must be noted. Most present-day horticulturalists
live in areas such as New Guinea, the Pacific Islands, South America and
parts of central Africa. The climate and natural vegetation in these areas
is quite different from those in which the earliest horticulturalists lived, and
the crops grown by these people have different growth and harvesting
requirements from the cereal crops grown in Europe and south-west Asia,
and require different techniques to prepare them for consumption. These
factors will have made some difference to the social and economic organisation of the communities. but just how much, and how they would have
affected gender roles and the status of women is difficult to establish.
However, although present-day horticulturalists live in a wide variety of
places around the world, many remarkably regular patterns of behaviour
can be observed, and this gives us some degree of confidence in using their
lifestyles as a model for the Neolithic, particularly if some of the behaviour
patterns can be seen to be reflected in evidence from archaeological sites.
Studies of the roles of women in different types of agricultural communities show a remarkably consistent pattern. 5 In societies where plough
agriculture is practised and animals are kept on a significant scale, most of
the agricultural work is done by men, with women playing no direct part,
or only a very subsidiary role. On the other hand, in horticultural societies,
in which hoes or digging sticks are used for making holes or drills in which
to plant roots or seeds, women are usually almost wholly responsible for
agricultural production. A study of r 04 horticultural societies existing
today showed that in 50 per cent of them women were exclusively responsible for agriculture, in 3 3 per cent women and men shared various tasks,
and in only I 7 per cent were men wholly responsible for farming, and this
is after decades or even centuries of contact with societies whose ideology
would encourage men to take on greater roles in production. 6 Horticultural
societies are still widespread, mainly within the Tropics, in many parts of
Africa, central America and Asia. The typical pattern in these areas is one
of shifting cultivation, where patches of land are worked for a few years,
and then when soil fertility declines another plot is cleared and cultivated.
Although men often help to clear the plots of trees and undergrowth,
women usually hoe, sow, tend and harvest the crops. Studies carried out
early this century suggest that this pattern of cultivation was more common
then than it is today. It also seems very likely that it was even more typical
before most parts of the world had contact with European traders and
missionaries, with their preconceived ideas about what it was right and
proper for women and men to do.
Today's horticulturalists, living mainly in tropical rain forest areas, have
to clear dense forest and undergrowth before they can begin cultivation,
and, as we have seen, this is usually the men's task. In south-west Asia,
81
Women in Prehistory
in the areas where agriculture was first practised, the natural vegetation
was very different. Analysis of pollen preserved on Neolithic sites shows
that natural grassland would have predominated, with oak and pistachio
forests on the higher land. Clearing this grassland would have been a
relatively easy task, and it is possible that initially the chosen cereal grass
seeds may have been scattered on bare sandy patches with little natural
vegetation, or that wild grasses could have been pulled up or burnt off
before seeds were scattered. The clearing task allotted to men in presentday horticultural societies would therefore hardly have existed; in any case,
men would presumably still have been involved in hunting, as they had
been when the society was wholly dependent on foraging and indeed as
they were in many recent horticultural societies before pressure on the land
and modern government interference reduced the importance of hunting in
many areas.
Most traditional horticultural societies keep no or very few animals. Wild
animals may be hunted, or one or two domesticated species may be kept
in limited numbers, usually living around the farmyard, rather than being
herded on a large scale. In New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, for example,
pigs are bred; they are highly valued and considerable effort goes into their
care, but because animals are not used for ploughing and animal manure
is not spread on the fields, the symbiotic relationship between plant crops
and domestic animals which is found in more sophisticated agricultural
regimes does not exist. In south-west Asia, however, the first evidence for
domesticated sheep, goats and pigs dates from almost the same time as the
earliest crops, and often occurs on the same sites, though at Abu Hureya,
one of the very earliest agricultural sites, for example, it seems that in the
first phase when crop husbandry was practised, meat was supplied only by
hunting wild animals. 7 It may be that the parallel invention of plant
cultivation and animal domestication is a real and important difference
between the present-day and the Neolithic horticulturalists. On the other
hand, it is impossible to work out the relative proportions of plants grown
and animals kept at a site from archaeological remains, because animal
bones usually survive well, whereas seeds and plant remains are rare, and
are not found unless special techniques for their recovery are used during
excavations. It is likely that a high proportion of the animals kept on the
site will be represented, while most seeds, and remains of other food plants,
will either have been eaten or resown and thus leave no archaeological
trace. On most early Neolithic sites, bones of wild animals are commonly
found with those of domesticated species, and hunting must have continued
alongside agriculture. How were gender roles balanced in these early
Neolithic communities? Did some men transfer their knowledge of animals
learnt through hunting to the tending of domesticated animals? Or did the
The First Farmers
men continue to hunt, as in today's horticultural societies, while women
or children looked after a small number of domesticated animals, perhaps
the young of a mother who had been killed by hunters, which had been
'rescued' and tended by a group of children?
As women are responsible for plant food gathering in virtually all foraging
societies about which we have information, and are responsible for growing
plants in horticultural societies today, it can be argued that it is very likely
that they would also have been responsible for these tasks in the past. 8 It
also follows that women would have been in a position to hit upon the
various stages towards the cultivation of plants, as well as all the vital
concomitant inventions associated with it, such as the hoe, and storage
and preparation procedures. Two questions arise. How might we imagine
these stages evolved? Would it have been a huge and sudden breakthrough,
or a gradual process? And secondly, can we find any archaeological evidence from the excavated Neolithic sites in the areas where we know
agriculture first occurred to suggest or prove that it was women who made
this revolutionary change?
The archaeological evidence for the early stages of the transition to
agriculture is hard to recognise. Morphological changes take place in plants
by both unintentional and deliberate selection of certain characteristics,
but only after years of cultivation. Species of animals kept separate from
wild populations with restricted breeding partners also change in the details
of their form after several generations. However, these mutations occur
long after the socially far more significant step of people actually manipulating the lives of the wild species, by keeping them in captivity or
providing food. If wild grass seeds are found on an archaeological site it
will not, therefore, be easy to tell directly whether they were gathered by
a pre-agricultural woman or grown in a place deliberately chosen by a
'Neolithic' woman.
A number of very important excavations which have taken place in
south-west Asia in the last decade or so have produced vital new evidence
for the stages in the transition to agriculture. 9 The settlements and house
types of the first farmers and their material culture have become better
known. However, most of these excavations have been on quite a small
scale by the standards of excavations in north-west Europe. If larger areas
of these sites were excavated it might be possible to show that some areas
or houses within them were used for one task and others for different ones.
For instance, concentrations of flint debris have shown where flint tools
were made, but corresponding evidence for different food-producing task
areas has not yet been reported on Near-Eastern Neolithic sites. 10 If this
could be done, it might be possible to correlate this evidence with the sex
of the skeletons which are quite frequently found buried under the floors
83
Women in Prehistory
of the house. Assuming that the dead person lived or worked in that
particular house. as seems quite plausible, this correlation, calculated for
a large enough sample, might provide real evidence that women were
regularly associated with one set of tasks and men with another. Although.
to the best of my knowledge, such a study has not yet been attempted, it
would be well within the scope of archaeology and requires only a larger
body of relevant material, which will undoubtedly be forthcoming from
excavations in the near future.
How may we imagine the discovery of agriculture was made? By analogy
with present-day foraging societies, as we have seen, it was almost certainly
women who were responsible for gathering plant foods, which, it is important to remember, make up the bulk of the diet in nearly all traditional
societies. They would therefore have been aware of the most likely place to
find a certain plant growing: for example, one plant food may have grown
beside a river, another under the shelter of trees. After a lifetime of watching
plants growing, these women would have understood a great deal about
the complicated business of plant biology; they would have recognised the
young seedlings which had become fully grown crops when they returned
to the same place later in the year. They would soon have realised that if
there was less rain or less sunshine than usual the plants would not be so
big and there would be less to eat. and they would have realised also that
the seeds needed to fall to the ground if more of that food was to grow in
the same place the next year. If the whole plant was pulled up or eaten.
none would grow there the next season, but if some of the seeds were
dropped or sprinkled somewhere else then that plant might grow there
instead. Undoubtedly many thousands of foraging women would have
realised this, but to most there would not have seemed to be any advantage
in controlling the places where the food grew. As we saw in the last
chapter, foraging lifestyles have many advantages. and agriculture does not
necessarily make life any better. Many present-day foragers, for example
the !Kung of the Kalahari desert, are well aware that their neighbours
practise agriculture, and even of how it works, but they choose to retain
their traditional, easy practices: 'why bother to grow crops when there are
so many mongongo nuts in the world?'
The transition from foraging to horticulture would inevitably have led
to many other changes in lifestyle, not all of which would have been
foreseen by the earliest innovators. Around r 0,000 BC women all over
Europe and south-west Asia would have spent part of their days gathering
the crops and plants which grew around them; the men would have spent
their time hunting. When the women thought that a plant growing some
way from home would be getting ripe, or the men noticed that there were
fewer and fewer animals nearby, they would take their small collection of
The Ffrst Farmers
belongings and move perhaps a few miles, perhaps many, till they came to
a better source of supply. How often such a move was necessary would
have varied tremendously. In some parts of the world, or at certain times
of the year, it would have been necessary to move every few days, while
at others they could have stayed several months in one particularly rich
spot. Indeed, in some of the most favourable parts of Europe it might only
have been necessary to move two or three times a year, alternating between
a few regular living places, or perhaps the only reason to move might have
been to harvest one particularly favoured crop which grew some distance
away. The foods that were actually eaten, of course, varied from area to
area, and some would have been more obvious candidates for domestication
than others. In the mountain valleys of south-west Asia there grew a
number of grasses, the seeds of which, it was discovered, could be boiled
or ground into flour, and were particularly tasty and nutritious. These
grasses, which we know as the cereals wheat and barley, were only found
in the mountain valleys, but other foods eaten in the area seem to have
grown on lower land, near the river valleys. Cereals only ripen once a year,
but the seeds could be kept and eaten in a later season. Foragers do not as
a rule carry food around with them, but some of the women gathering
these cereals may have found that they could easily gather enough food in
a few days to last for some time: some people would probably have stayed
where the seeds were harvested, while others may have preferred to carry
them some distance to other places, where perhaps other foods were to be
found. 11
These discoveries would probably have had two important consequences:
firstly, a change from a nomadic lifestyle to sedentism, and secondly a
significant increase in population. 12 In the first place it would have been
difficult to carry heavy bags full of cereals around; and if they were left
somewhere, with the intention of returning to them later, someone or some
animal would be very likely to find them, and eat them before the harvesters
came back. For these reasons, therefore, it would soon have been discovered
that it was best to leave at least some of the group guarding the grain
stores. Perhaps the elderly members of the community stayed behind while
the others went off looking for other foods. If sufficient grain was collected
to last for a considerable part of the year, it may have become easier to
stay in one place for many months, provided that some other sources of
food were also available nearby. When the cereal grain was moved from
its storage place to where it was to be eaten, some seeds would inevitably
have dropped on the ground, and some may eventually have germinated.
If the group was still living in, or had returned to, the same place the next
spring, some of the women would no doubt have noticed the new plants
of wheat and barley growing there. Some particularly observant women,
85
Women in Prehistory
or perhaps even a child. may have watched as the seed lying on the ground
sprouted, and gradually grew bigger and bigger, until it was recognisable
as a cereal plant. This would have happened year after year in many
different settlements around the natural sources of wheat and barley.
However, it would have been a major and significant step deliberately to
drop or sprinkle some precious seeds near the homebase and to be confident
that new plants would grow there. On the other hand, once this step had
been taken, it would have saved the trek to the place where the cereal was
normally harvested. It would then have been important to remain nearby
while the young plants were growing in order to ward off scavenging
animals and people. And once the ripe grain had been harvested, it would
have had to be carefully stored and protected while it was gradually being
eaten over the winter. So, without any original intent, the group would
have had to remain in the same place all year round; at no season could
the whole community have easily moved away. From a nomadic foraging
society the group would thus have become sedentary horticulturalists.
Modern nomadic foragers typically build only rudimentary forms of
shelter or none at all. They do not remain long enough in the same place
to make building substantial structures necessary; moreover, they usually
have very few material possessions, as these would only be an extra burden
to carry around. But as soon as a group no longer moves frequently, but
instead remains in one location, both these factors change. It becomes
worthwhile spending some time building a house which will last, and
horticulturalists nearly always construct substantial buildings for sleeping
and, perhaps more importantly, for storing the food they have produced.
The same pattern is clearly seen in the archaeological evidence for the
transition from foraging in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic to food producing
in the Neolithic. In the immediately pre-agricultural phase in the southern
Levant, known as the Natufian phase after a key site, and dated between
around 10000 and 8000 He, seasonally occupied base camps comprised
round or oval huts with stone footings but probably flimsy superstructures,
and were perhaps little more than windbreaks. But in the next archaeological phase in the area, when there is evidence of agricultural activity,
the houses were more carefully constructed. At Mureybet, a site to which
I have already referred, quite substantial rectangular huts were built, some
of cut blocks of limestone, others with clay walls in a wooden framework,
built on stone footings. Storage bins were built into the floor of the houses,
and the fact that the walls had been replastered implies that the houses
were occupied for a considerable time. 1 ~
As people became committed to living more or less permanently in one
location because of the agricultural cycle, and began to build places to store
things, they would have found it easier to accumulate possessions, such as
86
The First Farmers
ornaments, storage containers and tools. Tools used by foragers must be
either light enough to carry around or simple enough to be made as and
when they are required, and then discarded after use. If, on the other hand,
they can be kept and looked after, more effort can be expended on their
manufacture. Early agricultural tools would initially have included such
things as pointed sticks for making holes in the ground for sowing seeds,
and stone querns for grinding grain into flour. As women were discovering
the need for this equipment, so they, rather than men, would have solved
the problems and invented the necessary tools. 14 While prehistoric foraging
women might have used skin bags to carry the plant foods they had
gathered back to their base, just as their modern counterparts do, horticulturalists would have needed more solid containers for keeping food in
their houses, but which they would not have had to carry around. Carved
wooden vessels may have been used, and pottery has been used by most
horticultural societies, both past and present, but rarely by foragers. Indeed,
because it is usually so well preserved on archaeological sites, pottery is
often the first thing an archaeologist will mention when discussing a site
or period. It was invented in south-west Asia, in the same areas in which
farming was first practised, but probably several hundred years after the
people had become accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle. As pottery was
21 The plan of an
early Neolithic house
in the farming village
of Mureybet, Syria,
built of cut bricks of
soft limestone set in
clay mortar. One of
the four rooms (lower
right) contained a
sunken stone-lined
hearth, while another
(top right) had a
storage bin. Outside
(right) was a paved
courtyard. After
Mellaart, r 9 7 5.
Women in Prehistory
probably used initially for storing cereals, or for cooking plant foods, both
of which were within the women's sphere of activity, women are more
likely than men to have discovered the processes of moulding clay and then
firing it.
,'
Another consequence of the ability to keep'material possessions and to
store food was that for the first time some people could accumulate more
than others. If someone needed a tool or an emergency supply of food that
someone else had in surplus, it could be borrowed or accepted as a gift, and
the borrower would become indebted to the lender or giver. So wealth,
debt and obligation, and hence social stratification based on differential
ownership, could have begun to develop for the first time in the Neolithic
period, and this is a key theme to which we will return later.
Young children, too, would no longer have needed to be continually
carried around. As was discussed in the previous chapter, forager women,
facing long treks every few days or weeks, rarely have more than one child
under the age of three or four years at any one time. Carrying one child
around constantly would be hard enough; carrying two almost impossible.
",I1ir:r<:::
··
·:(•:·\:
.:)/·..
88
The First Farmers
In forager societies the lack of suitable foodstuffs for very young children
delays weaning; continual breast-feeding, which would have been necessary in the absence of other food, tends to suppress ovulation in the mother,
so also determining the minimum spacing of births. But once long journeys
became less common, and food - particularly cereals which are more easily
digestible by young children - more certain, an increase in the number of
children born, perhaps coupled with a slight decrease in infant mortality.
would soon have led to a growth in population. 15 On many Neolithic sites
in south-west Asia, a rapid increase in the size of the community is shown
by the increasing number of .houses on successive phases of the site. The
well-known Neolithic site of Jericho is a particularly remarkable example,
where the homebase of a small foraging group seems to have developed
suddenly into a thriving small town.
Farming must have made this population growth possible, but it would
also have led to the beginning of a vicious circle of social and economic
change from which there was no escape. More food could be produced from
each unit of land, but everyone would have had to work harder to produce
~ :~.;I;~~~:.~.?.-.
_:
-2r·
·_:_:~>{i4~-
\17
22 (left and right) Typical
artefacts from the early
Neolithic site of Jarmo, Iraq,
c. 6500-6000 BC, made
from chipped and ground
stone, unbaked clay, reed
matting and bone (various
scales). After Braidwood,
1967.
89
Women in Prehistory
that food. More people in the group would have meant more women to
work in the fields, but also more mouths to feed. The invention of pottery
and other new skills would have created a desire or perceived need for new
material possessions. The manufacture of these items 'would have taken
people's time away from agricultural tasks, ·though they too would still
have needed to be fed. A major area of debate amongst archaeologists
studying the period is whether an increase in population necessitated the
adoption of agriculture, or whether it was the advent of agriculture which
made population growth possible. But once the change had been made,
everyone would have had to work harder to get more out of the land, and
the option of returning to a foraging lifestyle would have become less and
less feasible. The people of south-west Asia and then of Europe had become
enmeshed in the ever-continuing spiral of increasing populations and more
and more labour needed to feed the people, but perhaps also began to enjoy
a more comfortable, and certainly a more materialistic, lifestyle. At any
rate, agriculture is generally regarded as an advance, and a positive and
important step in the progress towards civilisation; and it is very probable
that this hugely significant discovery was made, not by men as has generally
been assumed, but by women.
The expansion of agricultural communities
Over the three or four millennia after agriculture had been adopted in southwest Asia, the knowledge and skills involved gradually spread through most
of Europe. With the success of the new method of food production the
population was able to grow; as a result, every so often a community would
become too big to be viable and part of it would probably move away in
search of fresh land to cultivate. Sometimes, too, forager women probably
learnt agricultural skills from a farming group which they encountered.
Over the millennia and over the huge area which is Europe there is a great
deal of variety in the archaeological evidence for these first farmers, which
cannot be considered here in full, but as an example we shall look at
perhaps the best-known complex of sites, known as the Linear Pottery
Culture, in some detail.
The Linear Pottery Culture, 16 so called after the type of decoration on its
pottery, flourished between roughly 5 500 and 4800 BC. Settlements are
found along the river valleys of the Danube, the Rhine and other major
rivers and tributaries of Central Europe, where fine loess soils would have
been particularly favourable to agriculture. The areas actually cleared and
exploited were very restricted: 17 only limited clearance was made in primary
forest, and the bones of wild animals found on the sites which have been
excavated suggest that hunting would still have been important in the
90
Women in Prehistory
in one end of the longhouses typical of the Linear Pottery Culture (see
below), this would imply that the number of cattle kept was limited. The
location of settlements on soils ideal for growing crops rather than grazing
animals and the predominance of forest ar_ound the;e settlements have
been used to support the argument that crops would have been a far more
significant part of the economy than domesticated animals. 21 The work of
tending and feeding small numbers of cattle and pigs might have fallen to
the women, while men continued to hunt and fish.
One of the most distinctive aspects of the Linear Pottery Culture is the
large, rectangular longhouses (Fig. 26 ), about a dozen of which are usually
grouped together to form villages occupied by several hundred people. The
shape and size of houses of any society will be, at least in part, a reflection
of its social organisation, and particularly of family structure, and in turn
reflect the position of women in that society. Two studies, 22 which might
be applicable to archaeological evidence, have used ethnographic data to
substantiate this correlation. Melvin Ember has argued that residence
patterns after marriage are reflected in the size of houses, while John
Whiting and Barbara Ayres suggest that polygamy or monogamy may be
inferred from their shape. According to Ember. in matrilocal societies.
where women stay in the same settlements after marriage, larger houses
used by extended family units are more common than in patrilocal societies,
where smaller houses are occupied by nuclear units. Sisters and their
unrelated husbands are more likely to share household tasks and live under
one roof, than are brothers sharing houses with unrelated wives in patrilocal societies. Obviously the matrilocal extended families will need
more space within each house, which will thus have a larger floor area
than a house designed for a nuclear family. A survey of ethnographic cases
where sufficient data was available both for house sizes and for residence
patterns suggested, with clear statistical correlation, that houses in patrilocally organised societies average 30 square metres in floor area and
nearly always less than 5 5 square metres, whereas the ethnographic data
available for albeit a fairly small number of matrilocally organised societies
shows houses averaging 80 square metres, with only one known exception
under 5 5 square metres. While this latter study showed a statistically
significant pattern, sufficient data was only available for thirty-seven societies. Whiting and Ayres' study suggests that rectangular houses, such as
those found in the Linear Pottery Culture. are more likely to be associated
with monogamy than with polygamy. Caution must clearly be exercised if
we wish to apply this pattern to archaeological examples. The small sample
size and the ever-present possibility, indeed sometimes the probability, that
a past society behaved in a way unreplicated in the present world should
warn us against feeling that the hypothesis can be turned into a law-like
94
TlzeFirst Farmers
certainty. Nor is it always possible to distinguish domestic space from areas
used
for storage or other functions. However, difference in house size can
.-.
often be easily detectable from excavation plans, and on the basis of Ember's
study, such evidence might form part of a hypothesis as to whether the
society was matrilocally or patrilocally organised, particularly if this is
supported by other data.
The houses of the Linear Pottery Culture and its successor cultures in
central Europe, the Lengyel, Rossen and Tripolye, stand out within the
prehistoric period for their great size. They are rectangular in shape and
have a width of between 5 and 6 metres. This is probably the maximum
that can easily be spanned with gabled roof timbers and a roof slope
sufficient for rain water to drain off efficiently. In length the houses vary
from 7 to 45 metres. though 6 to 20 metres is most common, and 1 7
metres the average. 23 These figures give house areas of between 30 and
120 square metres, and an average of around roo square metres, which
certainly falls within the pattern suggestive of matrilocal residence, though
it must be borne in mind that we do not always know the function of each
part of the house. The structure of the houses shows remarkable regularity.
One-third of the house has a more solidly built outer wall than the rest,
and this is often interpreted as winter stalling for cattle. An alternative
interpretation is that it is merely strengthening against the prevailing wind,
as studies of phosphate levels, which might provide evidence of stalling of
animals, and artefacts distributed within the house show more uniformity
than might be expected if different areas were used for very different
functions: this is important, as it will significantly affect the calculation of
domestic space and hence the number of people likely to have lived in each
house. The other end of the house invariably has very sturdy internal posts,
which probably supported an upper floor. This would have been strong
enough to have been used for storage, though the area below may still
have had a domestic function. Therefore, probably one-third, and possibly
two-thirds, of the floor area of each house was not actually used as domestic
space. Other clues, such as internal partitions or hearths which might
suggest space allocated to nuclear units within an extended family, have
not been found on any Linear Pottery site, but this is as likely to reflect the
poor state of preservation of the sites as the lack of such features. Several
houses of the Tripolye culture of the Middle Neolithic, on the north side of
the Black Sea, which are of similar shape and size, have between one and
five ovens, and the number of hearths correlates closely with the length of
the house. On the basis of this, another study 24 has suggested that a 5-6
metre section of a longhouse might have been occupied by one family.
Thus, for example, a longhouse of 20 metres would have housed four
families. Many, but not all, of the Linear Pottery houses are over the 5 5
95
Women in Prehistory
•
;·:.! -:::
•
• •
•
··•.
: ..
·
(:·
,•'•.
'••'
• ,
••
•
•
•
•
•
•
~
.....,
•
••
•
.:.::·
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..
••• • • •
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26 Reconstruction and ground plan of a typical longhouse of the Linear Pottery
Culture, from Geleen in the Netherlands. After Clarke, 1977.
square metre dividing line between matrilocal and patrilocal residence
proposed by Ember. The smaller houses may have been occupied by smaller,
but still extended, families, whereas it would be harder to explain houses
much larger than a basic unit if nuclear family residence was the norm. I
would therefore suggest that the pattern here was one of matrilocal residence units based on the maternal grandmother and her daughters with
their husbands and children. Families with only one or two daughters
would require smaller houses than those with perhaps four or five daughters. As we have already seen, the evidence for the agricultural base of the
Linear Pottery Culture is consistent with a high degree of economic, and
hence political, involvement by women, which together with higher than
average status for women is also characteristic of matrilocal societies.
The suggestion that matrilocal residence was the norm in the Linear
Pottery Culture is supported by theories put forward in two important
studies. Though they are quite independent, both relate, -in general. to
societies which are in the process of spreading or migrating: this is one of
the clearest characteristics of the Linear Pottery Culture, as well as the
other early Neolithic groups which occupied Europe between the sixth and
the third millennium BC.
The first study 25 looked at societies which had recently migrated into
new territory and found that these societies had a greater than average
likelihood of being matrilocally based. The advantages for such a society
in a new territory are easy to see. In a matrilocal society men move from
their village of birth on marriage, so adult male relatives are dispersed
among villages. They are therefore less likely to make war on other villages
of the same culture, as in effect this would involve fighting and killing their
•
The First Farmers
own brothers. So the newly founded villages would be able to concentrate
on the problems of clearing new land, building new houses and the like,
rather than worrying about raids. On the other hand, when in danger from
other peoples - perhaps the original inhabitants of the territory into which
they had moved - it would be easier to call on the support of relatives in
other villages.
Another theory 26 argues that the limiting factor on the success of a
society moving into new, sparsely or unoccupied territory would be the
size of the labour force to clear and farm land. As women are primarily
responsible for increasing the size of a group through reproduction. somewhat higher value would then be placed on them than in societies which
put less of a premium on enlarging the labour force. On the other hand,
social tensions between descent groups over whether offspring belonged to
the mother's or the father's family - that is. matrilineal or patrilineal
descent - might become more significant as each group wanted new
members. This contrasts with the situation found later when the critical
resource became land rather than the size of the workforce, which would
have given women less ability to negotiate their social position.
There is also another reason why peoples who had recently migrated are
more likely to have been matrilocally based: in societies where women
already had a greater say in subsistence issues, their arguments that more
land was needed in order to feed the family, and therefore that the group
needed to migrate, might take precedence over other, social, issues, such
as remaining in the vicinity of close kin, which might incline patrilocal
societies to remain in the same area.
As we have seen, burials and their accompanying grave goods can
provide useful clues to the social structure of a society. and those of the
Linear Pottery Culture seem to confirm the model of a society where women
were not dominated by men. Cemeteries of inhumation, or more rarely
cremation, burials are often associated with the Linear Pottery Culture
villages. The burials have few grave goods, and perhaps most significantly
there are no major differences in the quantity or apparent quality of the
grave goods found with women and men. Arrowheads are only found in
men's burials, while querns and awls are found with women. At some sites
ornaments made of shell imported from considerable distances are only
found with male burials, but at other sites both women and men are buried
with these shells.
Before leaving the Linear Pottery Culture it will be of interest to draw
some comparisons between it and the culture of the Iroquois Indians of the
east coast of North America. Archaeologists have often been criticised for
drawing one-to-one comparisons between their data and an 'anthropological example. as obviously no two peoples will be identical, and it is
97
Women in Prehistory
often tempting to see an archaeological site or culture as a carbon copy of
the anthropological in order to fill in the missing details, or to try and use
it as proof of an archaeological theory. There are a number of important
differences between the Linear Pottery Culture sites and those of the Iroquois
Indians, but there are some equally noteworthy similarities. These make a
brief look at the Iroquois worthwhile, partly to help sketch one possible
view of the Linear Pottery Culture, and on a more scientific level to provide
a model or basis for further questions to ask of the direct archaeological
evidence for the Linear Pottery Culture.
The Iroquois were living in what is now New York State at the time of
the earliest European settlers in the area, and were described by a number
of explorers and missionaries in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.27 They have been of particular interest to feminist anthropologists
as one of the best-documented societies in which women had high status
and quite a degree of power. The society was also matrilineally and matrilocally based. The Iroquois economy depended mainly on horticulture:
maize, beans and squashes were grown, and supplemented by wild fruit,
nuts, roots and mushrooms. The Linear Pottery culture used very similar
hoe techniques to grow principally wheat and pulses. However, a most
important contrast is that the Iroquois did not keep animals: while the
women were almost wholly responsible for all agricultural activities, men
hunted wild animals. The Linear Pottery people. on the other hand. kept
cattle as well as some sheep and pigs. If the cattle were overwintered at
one end of the longhouses, their numbers cannot have been very large, so
it is possible that the task of tending the cows fell to the women in addition
to their other agricultural tasks. Iroquois land was owned communally and
cultivated by the women as a team. Like the Linear Pottery farmers, the
Iroquois had to clear woodland in an environment not very dissimilar from
that of Europe. Men. perhaps with the help of women, cleared the fields by
girdling trees and then burning the undergrowth after they had been
allowed to die off, just as is suggested for Europe.
One of the most striking similarities in the material culture of the two
societies is in their houses. Like the Linear Pottery Culture. the Iroquois
built massive Ionghouses which accommodated an entire extended family.
Jn each Iroquois house an older woman, or matron, who was usually the
grandmother of the children in the house, lived with her daughters and
their husbands and children. Each smaller unit had an area and hearth of
its own. but food supplies were communal and distributed by the matron,
who had the power to exclude undesirable men from the house or to
withhold food from them. This gave women the very powerful right of
veto over virtually all male activities, including making war. Although
discussion in inter-village or inter-tribal matters was in the hands of the
98
The First Farmers
men, it was impossible to implement a decision unpopular with the women.
Many aspects of the archaeology of the Linear Pottery Culture of early
Neolithic Europe therefore suggest that its social organisation and economic
base may have allowed women to be highly valued and play a leading role
in many aspects of life, enjoying status at least equal to that of men, and
this picture may perhaps be tentatively reinforced by the parallels which
can be drawn with the life of Iroquois women.
The secondary products revolution, 28 or the great male
takeover bid
In an earlier section it was argued that women almost certainly 'invented'
or worked out the principles of farming as well as many of the concomitant
skills and tools which go to make crop agriculture possible and profitable.
As principal food providers they were probably respected and had equal
status with men. But between then and now, in all but the most traditional
hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies, the status of women has been
drastically reduced, and in many areas farming has become a predominantly male preserve. Why the change, and when did it happen?
Two facts are certain: firstly, by the time of the earliest written records,
everywhere in Europe farming was primarily a male occupation, and men
owned the farmland and the tools. Secondly, in those areas of the world
where women are still the main agricultural producers, most of the farming
is concerned with crop production, and if animals are kept at all, it is
usually on a small farmyard scale, rather than as large herds or flocks. 29
The change to male dominance in agriculture, therefore, took place at some
time between the first stages of the Neolithic period and the advent of
written records, and may be related to the changing role of animals within
the farming economies of prehistoric Europe. It also seems likely that such
a drastic shift in lifestyle, whether it took place gradually over millennia or
as a sudden 'revolution', would have been associated with other changes
within society. Anthropologists have shown that in present-day societies a
significant (though not roo per cent) correlation exists between plough
agriculture and patrilineal descent and land ownership in the same way
as there is a correlation between non-plough agriculture and the heavy
involvement, and consequent enhanced status, of women. We can look for
evidence of this shift in the archaeological record: for example, changes in
family structure, wealth or ownership patterns may show up in settlement
sites or in burials, as we shall see in later chapters.
While I shall discuss the evidence for Neolithic Europe, the same transformations also took place in the Near East and have recently been discussed
in similar terms by Autumn Stanley. 30
99
Women in Prehistory
The crucial changes in farming practice are thought to have taken place
around 3000 BC, in the later Neolithic period. This would have been some
five millennia after the introduction of farming in the Near East, and similar
economic shifts can be detected in many areas of Europe at about the same
time. Andrew Sherratt 31 has suggested that a·lthough domesticated animals
were kept during the early Neolithic, they were used only as a source of
meat; the consumption of milk or milk products was probably not significant, nor were the animals used for pulling ploughs or carts. All these
innovations came later and not only revolutionised agricultural
productivity, but also reduced the amount of labour involved in farming.
Moreover, the greater importance of domesticated animals and their products would have reduced the necessity for hunting wild animals. As the
balance of work changed from part hunting, part crop cultivation and
tending a small number of animals to an economy dependent on mixed
farming, so the roles and duties of women and men may have shifted. Let
us examine the evidence and arguments in detail.
Both carts and ploughs first appear in depictions on clay tablets and
cylinder seals in Mesopotamia, around the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, and both seem to have spread to Europe fairly rapidly over
500 years or so. One of the earliest depictions of ploughing (Fig. 2 7) shows
an ox drawing a two-handled plough with a sowing funnel, a device used
for sowing seed deeply in the soil and often associated with areas where
irrigation is needed. Most significantly the two individuals involved, one
guiding the animal from the front, the other guiding the plough, both
appear to be men with beards. Early depictions of ploughs in Egypt, from
Old Kingdom tombs, also show them being used by men. Elsewhere in
Europe the earliest evidence for ploughs is found in the form of 'ploughmarks', where the subsoil has been scratched, leaving grooves sometimes
preserved under later sites. These are found in the course of excavation,
and examples from both Denmark and Britain are dated as early as the midfourth millennium; 32 however, unlike the depictions, these marks obviously
give no direct evidence of whether the farmer was male or female. From
about the same date we also find models of yoked oxen from Poland.
Our earliest evidence of carts, which would also have greatly increased
agricultural efficiency, consists of pottery models from Hungary, of midfourth millennium date, and actual wheels, found preserved by water. logging in north-west Europe and dating from the late fourth millennium.
Another innovation which seems to have taken place at around the same
time was the large-scale exploitation of milk and the herding of milk cows
on a significant scale. Apart from milk's dietary advantages, if animals are
to be bred for traction and herds maintained, it is much more 'cost-effective'
to obtain milk from them regularly, rather than to eat them as meat only
100
Women in Prehistory
the evidence of the cattle bones, however, it is likely that milking was
introduced slightly earlier than the date of these illustrations. The analysis
of cattle bones from Swiss Neolithic sites of the early fourth millennium
shows that many female cows were kept more than two or three years, a
pattern which strongly implies dairy rather than beef production. Sherratt
suggests that in north-west Europe small dairy herds may have been kept,
though the heavy forest cover would have inhibited large herds. Although
in pastoral societies (those which depend exclusively, or almost exclusively,
on animal herding) the division of gender roles between tending, milking
and the processing of animal products is more varied, when animal husbandry is part of a mixed farming regime, as it seems to have been in
Neolithic Europe, the involvement of women often seems to depend on the
scale of herding. When only a few animals are kept, women often tend and
milk them, in addition to other farming tasks, while men continue to hunt.
In full-time mixed farming communities, where herding is a large-scale
activity, such as is postulated for post-'secondary products revolution'
Europe, men tend to be more involved in herding and milking, often leaving
women to process milk into cheese and yoghurt.
A third innovation, which can be more easily detected archaeologically,
was the systematic spinning and weaving of wool. Wool itself sometimes
survives where conditions of preservation are favourable, and spindle
whorls and loomweights are common finds on archaeological sites. This
innovation may be particularly significant in this context: in the Homeric
legends, in Mycenaean Greek documents and later in classical Greece, as
well as in the earliest documents of other areas, spinning and weaving are
almost universally female tasks, often forming a significant part of the
economy, and would probably have created an additional time-consuming
role for the woman farmer. Perhaps they would not have been possible
without a reallocation of other tasks to men. Although flax was grown and
used as a textile early in the Neolithic, the breeding of sheep which produce
wool which can be plucked, rather than hair, was probably the result of
deliberate selection. This practice may have originated as early as the
fifth millennium in Mesopotamia, but only became common in the third
millennium when sheep herding seems to have become more widespread
in several areas of Europe. At about this time, or perhaps slightly later, the
skeletal features of the animals show a change which may reflect the
increasing concentration on wool production. Most significantly, a high
proportion of the sheep are seen to have been kept till an age well past that
at which they are most efficiently bred for meat.
The innovations of ploughing and the extensive use of the secondary
products of animals, involving milking and spinning and weaving, bring
in their train many other important new tasks. Ploughs have to be made
L02
The First Farmers
and maintained, and animals trained for the job from a young age. Milking
needs to be done regularly, and milk products processed, often in specially
made equipment. Sheep have to be plucked. Herds must be fed or tended
in suitable pastures. and given access to water. Spinning and weaving wool
into yarn and then textiles is especially time-consuming, though it can be
carried out at the same time as other tasks, such as looking after children.
So the range and amount of work produced by these innovations is not
inconsiderable, particularly if added to the already substantial amount
involved in arable agriculture, let alone child-rearing, even if each one of
these tasks is carried out on only a small scale. By the third millennium,
farming and food production would have changed from a comparatively
small series of tasks which one woman, or group of women. could have
performed with comparatively little equipment, to a series of complex
operations which would have been a full-time occupation for the whole
population.
Although there is considerable variation in the relative proportions of
bones from wild and domesticated animals on Neolithic sites of different
phases in different parts of Europe, on many sites of about this time the
ratio of bones of hunted animals becomes comparatively small. whereas on
earlier sites, such as those of the Linear Pottery Culture. a high proportion of
meat (over 30 per cent in some cases) comes from hunted animals. This
provides further indication that men were abandoning hunting in order to
join in the farming process to a much greater extent. even, eventually,
going so far as to take over agriculture entirely.
The 'secondary products' which develop in the later Neolithic all centre
around the greater importance of animals, particularly cattle and sheep,
within the farming context (pigs, which give no secondary products and
are less time-consuming to manage, are not so significant in this argument).
They mark a change from horticulture to intensive agriculture, in which
the herding of animals directly for food, for the secondary products which
derive from them and for their additional use as traction animals, is as
important a part of the agricultural work of the community as arable
farming. If the few artistic representations of the later Neolithic and subsequent prehistoric periods can be used to suggest that men now became
more involved in agriculture, this can be backed up by a consideration of
gender roles in societies with a similar economic base which have been
described in the anthropological literature. 34
In areas of the world where plough agriculture and the herding of
animals are the predominant form of farming, men universally play the
major role in agricultural tasks. Women either take no part in farming or
only a small one. They may sometimes contribute to harvesting, or to the
care of domestic animals, if these are kept only in small numbers. An
Women in Prehistory
important distinction exists today between Africa, where horticulture predominates, and Asia, where plough agriculture is far more common and
where domesticated animals are kept. Even in those areas of Asia, for
example, where women are involved to some extent in aspects of plough
agriculture, they work fewer hours than rrien; whereas in Africa, where
farming is predominantly carried out without the use of the plough, and
primarily by women, they do far more work than men. The other main
difference between these two farming regimes is that social and economic
stratification is a far more significant factor, with greater extremes of
poverty and wealth and of land ownership amongst the Asian plough
agriculturalists than amongst the African hoe agriculturalists or horticulturalists. While bearing in mind the problem in using ethnographic
comparisons, we may nevertheless consider whether the changes which
took place in Europe during the 'secondary products revolution' had similarities with the differences between the African and the Asian form of
agricultural organisation.
To return to Neolithic Europe, it is difficult to be precise about the exact
date of these innovations and to know whether they occurred together over
a short space of time or each individually as a gradual development. Looking
for the earliest example of an artefact or innovation is notoriously difficult
in archaeology, partly because we are never looking at more than one tiny
sample of the sites or examples that once existed, and partly because it is
rare to be able to date a particular instance exactly. There is also dispute
about whether some of these innovations happened in different parts of
Europe, or spread from a small number of centres. Whichever is the case,
their adoption would seem to be a common response to a general problem.
that of coping with an increased population and the necessity to expand
out of areas of best possible soils and conditions into slightly less fertile
ones. Moreover, the introduction of each individual aspect would not
necessarily have immediately resulted in social changes. Sherratt 35 argues
that the total impact of the large-scale adoption of all these innovations
would not have been felt in north-west Europe till the late Neolithic or even
the beginning of the Bronze Age. If the innovations were spread over many
hundreds of years, or several generations of farmers, no single individual
would have appreciated the change at the time; but from our retrospective
viewpoint, they can certainly be considered revolutionary. not only from
the point of view of farming itself, but in the social changes which must
have followed.
These changes in agricultural production took place over much of northwest Europe, just as in the areas of south-east and central Europe, which
we have so far considered; and throughout most of Europe they were
secondary to an earlier phase of horticulture-type farming. As in south104
The First Farmers
west Asia and south-east Europe, the third millennium in north-west
Europe is marked archaeologically by the expansion of the settled area onto
poorer soils away from the river valleys. This expansion was accompanied
by significant changes in settlement and house types, and new artefact
forms. 36 Major changes in material culture are frequently the outward
manifestation of deep-rooted social or political changes, and it will be argued
that they imply significant consequences for the women of prehistoric and
later Europe, right through to the present day.
Patterns of social organisation in horticultural societies today are quite
different from those of intensive agriculturalists: these seem to be linked to
the balance of agricultural tasks and to their allocation to each sex. One of
the greatest differences is in the position of women. This reinforces the
theory that it was in the later Neolithic, when men began to take over most
agricultural work, that the social status of women declined.
As we have seen, it is likely that most of the tending of animals was done
by men. Large-scale herding often takes place some way from the farm
or settlement, as fresh grazing land is continually sought. Raiding by
neighbouring tribes seems to be an endemic part of most cattle herding almost a variation on hunting! This has been seen as the origin of warfare,
when for the first time people owned a resource which it was both worthwhile and fairly easy to steal.
Secondly, the invention of plough agriculture, too, would probably have
resulted in farming becoming predominantly a male activity, while on the
basis of ethnographic analogy, at least, women would probably have spent
more time in food preparation, child-rearing and textile and perhaps other
craft production.
Thirdly, although less land is needed for the same amount of production,
plough agriculture is far more labour-intensive than hoe agriculture: where
land is poor, ploughing makes agriculture possible. In some areas of prehistoric Europe it had the effect of making large tracts of lighter, sandy soil
available, but in other areas it may have allowed an increase in population
where there was a real or perceived shortage of land. In the earliest phases
of the Neolithic, land shortages would certainly not have been a problem,
as witnessed by the rapid population spread discussed in an earlier section.
However, in the later Neolithic there may have been a shortage of land
perceived to be suitable for agriculture. 37 Women would therefore have
been expected to produce more children and thus more labourers. This
would have been seen as their major role. Moreover, male children might
have been valued most highly, as future farm workers. Women, meanwhile,
would have become less valued by men in their own right: as more time
was spent in pregnancy and the care of very young infants, so less time
could be spent on farming activities. As men took over many of their tasks,
105
Women in Prehistory
they no longer contributed so much to the daily production of food, which
had been a crucial factor in maintaining the equal status they had previously enjoyed.
Fourthly, another social change which might have been an indirect
result of the secondary products revolution ·was the switch from matrilocal
residence and matrilineal descent to patrilocal residence and patrilineal
descent. There is a very strong ethnographic correlation between maledominated farming and patrilineal descent and patrilocal residence. A male
farmer will teach his sons the necessary skills and expect them to tend his
land and animals. In a matrilineal system his sister's sons, rather than his
own sons, inherit these herds, land and equipment on his death. This is
not in the male interest if men are the main agriculturalists. When women
were involved in the land-based tasks, they would have learnt the basic
skills from their mothers. so it would have been more obvious for them also
to inherit their land and equipment. However, it also seems that individual
land ownership is less common amongst hoe agriculturalists, and, by
definition, less equipment is used. Therefore, at least in terms of material
goods, far less is typically at stake in matrilineal than in patrilineal systems.
Finally, the development of agriculture brought with it a large increase,
not only in the number of related tasks, including several which are very
time-consuming, but also in the range of material possessions such as
farming and food-preparation tools and storage vessels. Two consequences
would have resulted. On the one hand, this may be seen as the spur to the
development of craft specialisation. as some individuals concentrated on
the production of one particular item, which they would exchange for other
products or services. At first this could have been in addition to normal
farming tasks. but increasingly some people might have found that they
could acquire enough food and other necessities by producing only their
specialised article. In this way exchange must have become more common,
and more sophisticated. On the other hand these material possessions,
as well as the domesticated animals themselves, would have constituted
considerable wealth, which could be accumulated and handed on from one
generation to the next. In the early stages of agriculture better luck or skill
in farming may have meant more food, but without the means or the
need to convert it into material goods. this would have had few social
consequences. However, as one family accumulated more cattle. or
acquired better ploughs, or were able to exchange more goods because of
their specialist craft skills, the gap between their wealth and that of their
neighbours would increase progressively. Many commentators 38 have seen
this apparently slight shift to be at the root of the whole of the Western
world's social system of hierarchies. class and stratification. A distinction
between rich and poor, which is insignificant in forager societies, develops
106
The First Farmers
progressively as wealth is passed on from generation to generation within
some families, while others are never able to achieve surpluses. The wealthy
can become powerful by lending to poorer families in return for services,
such as farm labour, or support in combat against other groups. By this
means the rich are able to become more wealthy, while the poorer become
indebted to other families, and have to produce more and more, or spend
time on tasks other than directly for their own subsistence. So the vicious
circle develops, and it is easy to see how from this point permanent
hierarchies not only of wealth, but of power and status come about, in a
way which is impossible in forager societies. This is also the context in
which a society can begin to think of people, as well as material possessions
and land, as objects of value and exchange. A child could be given as labour
to a family to whom the child's parents were indebted, or a woman given
to work or to produce extra children.
How such fundamental changes actually took place is not clear, even if
we assume they were a gradual process in each community. The full
consequences which have just been discussed would have developed very
slowly, even over millennia, and are difficult to pinpoint chronologically.
In any case, as women were increasingly relegated to secondary tasks, by
the end of the Neolithic period they had fewer personal resources with
which to assert their status. Presumably, as with so many innovations
even in the modern world, the social and economic consequences of seemingly minor innovations would not have been apparent until it was too
late to return to former mores. The discovery of agriculture, which at the
beginning of the Neolithic had been such a positive step by women, was
by the end of the period to have had unforeseen, and unfortunate, consequences for them.
107
4 The Bronze Age
The introduction of copper, and later its alloy bronze, used for making tools,
weapons and ornaments, heralds the period known to archaeologists as
the Bronze Age. The metal was known from the fourth millennium BC,
though it did not become common in western Europe until the second
millennium. It was eventually displaced for most of its uses by iron, around
the seventh century BC. For archaeologists, bronze is particularly important
as an easily recognisable chronological indicator before the advent of
scientific or 'absolute' dating methods, such as radiocarbon dating.
However, it is easy to overestimate the significance of the change for the
people at the time; the new materials would not necessarily have been all
important in everyday life. Archaeologists discuss at length matters such
as the discovery of bronze and the nature of its impact. But social questions,
such as what proportion of the population had access to the new material
and what indirect effects it had on society, are equally important.
In every region of Europe a change from communal to single burials
seems to have occurred at about the same time as the introduction of
copper and bronze: this may suggest that individual wealth could be
demonstrated for the first time. This individual wealth, in turn, led to
the development of societies with a high degree of social stratification,
intensifying a trend which, as we have seen in the last section, probably
began to develop after the establishment of agriculture. Wealthy elites seem
to have emerged, and there may have been a premium on portable and
durable wealth, not only in the form of bronze, but also of gold, jet, amber
and other materials, which were often exchanged or traded over large areas
of Europe. This change within society must have had a significant effect on
the lives of women. In some societies studied by anthropologists, women
are used to display male wealth. Ornaments and jewellery may be worn by
women, whether they are accumulated by them on their own account or
by their male relations; in other societies, women themselves are used as
exchange commodities in dealings between men. Could Bronze Age women
possess and acquire their own wealth, or did some merely have rich
husbands? Were they involved in trade, either as merchants or as commodities? And what was the overall impact of the new materials on their
lives?
The evidence for women in the Bronze Age is rather different from that
which we found in earlier periods. Over much of Europe the dead were
now buried separately, each with their own grave goods and individual
108
The Bronze Age
ritual. Women are therefore often clearly distinguishable from men, both
by virtue of the evidence of their skeletons or cremated remains and of
differences in the grave goods with which they are characteristically buried.
The number and quality of objects found in graves varies considerably, and
the significance of particular objects and of overall differences between
burials has been the subject of a great deal of debate. In particular, much
work has attempted to evaluate the relative wealth of different grave goods:
for example, whether a small gold ring might be worth more or less than
a large bronze axe. This is a very difficult task, yet very important, especially
as women and men were regularly buried with different types of grave
goods. It is also impossible to account for the possibility that there may
have been highly valued grave goods made of materials which would
usually have perished, such as fine textiles or rare and beautiful feathers.
The results of these studies, which will be discussed in this chapter, have
provided a number of indications of the relative wealth and status of women
in different phases of the Bronze Age, and in different parts of Europe.
Another potentially fruitful source of evidence is rock engravings found
in parts of Scandinavia and the southern Alpine area, although their
interpretation is in many cases open to question. 1
But first we shall consider the subject of Minoan Crete. By the time of
the Bronze Age the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean basin had
developed µrban life, architectural styles, technology and other features of
their culture far in advance of the rest of Europe. This has led many people,
including archaeologists, to describe them as 'civilisations', and to suggest
that these people were far more sophisticated than the 'barbarians' elsewhere in Europe. Whether their architecture and the fact that their culture
has been better preserved really reflects such a great difference in the
lifestyle of the majority of the people of Minoan Crete compared with the
rest of Europe, and in particular in the lives of, and attitude towards,
women, is an open question. Nevertheless, the evidence for women's lives
in Minoan society is certainly much fuller than for most other prehistoric
women in Europe, so it will be discussed in some detail. Moreover, a
particularly relevant aspect of Minoan culture is that it is often taken as a
classic example of a matriarchal society.
Was Minoan Crete a matriarchy?
The Minoan civilisation of the Mediterranean island of Crete was at its
height in the first half of the second millennium BC, and in technological
terms it belongs to the- Early Bronze Age. The remains of this society,
including architecture in stone and works of art, are well preserved and
far more elaborate than elsewhere in Early Bronze Age Europe. Yet Minoan
109
Women in Prehistory
Crete is a prehistoric culture, as we have no written records of the people's
lives or attitudes. Although clay plaques bearing inscriptions in Minoan
hieroglyphics and 'Linear A' script have been found at a number of sites,
unfortunately they have not yet been deciphered. Our' understanding of the
archaeological evidence is therefore just as dependent on the interpretation
we put upon it as is the evidence of the Stone Age which we have already
discussed.
Early Bronze Age Crete is well known for its huge palaces, the most
famous of which must be Knossos, a huge site excavated by Sir Arthur
Evans in the early years of this century. 2 Other palaces at Phaistos, Mallia
and Ayia Triadha are almost as impressive. Each consists of a series of
labyrinthine rooms built around three or four sides of a large open courtyard. Complexes of various-sized rooms have been interpreted as reception
rooms, domestic suites and store-rooms. On the walls, or more commonly
lying in fragments on the floor, of some of the corridors and domestic and
reception rooms the excavators found fragmentary traces of elaborate wallpaintings or frescoes. Many of these have been reconstructed, sometimes
from very small pieces, though the significance of the scenes depicted is not
always unambiguous. Among the most celebrated of the artefacts found at
Knossos is a series of figurines of bare-breasted women with full-length
skirts, and with one or more snakes entwined around their arms. 3 These,
and the subjects of some of the frescoes, have been the basis of one of the
best-known controversies in the debate over the existence of matriarchal
societies.
The frescoes should be a form of evidence which is easy to understand.
Almost for the first time in human history, we find scenes showing women
and men involved in a variety of activities, and, most significantly, it is
usually possible to distinguish between the sexes. In most scenes they are
easily told apart by major differences in dress and hairstyles, but in addition
the Minoans seem to have adopted the convention of painting the skin of
women white, while that of men is painted brown. The same convention
occurs in Egyptian tomb paintings of about the same date. and enough
other indications of sex combine with this to give us a reasonable degree
of confidence in assuming that all white figures are women, and all brown
ones are men.
In these frescoes women are depicted more frequently than men. and
sometimes in more detail. 4 Some scholars have used this fact to argue that
women were held in high regard in Minoan society. However, although it
may be possible to gain some insight into women's roles from the activities
in which they are portrayed, the mere fact of pictures of women certainly
cannot be used as evidence of high status. As we have already discussed,
in our own society, for instance, pictures of women - even naked largeI 10
The Bronze Age
shown leading the procession. However, there is some ambiguity: the figure,
only the top part of whose body survives, is painted white, which elsewhere
i'nvariably indicates a woman, but the body shape, muscles and lack of
breasts suggest that it is a man. So a number of illustrations show women
in apparently important positions, suggesting some kind of leadership or
dominance, but if these pictures had explanatory captions we might find
that they had quite other meanings!
One of the best known of all the Minoan wall-paintings, and also one of
the most interesting from the point of view of female activities, is the bull
leaping scene. Three figures, dressed identically in kilts, are taking part.
Two have dark skin and are therefore presumably male, and one has white
skin and is presumably female. A similar scene is depicted on a cup from
Vaphio, where a figure, thought to be a female on the basis of the hairstyle,
seems to be being tossed between the bulls' horns. So women, as well as
men, took part in bull-leaping, a sport, or perhaps a religious activity,
which must have involved considerable agility and stamina, and hours of
practice, 8 as well as surely entailing a very high risk of death or injury.
What class of people took part, we do not know. Was it an honour to be
chosen as a bull-leaper, or something to which slaves were condemned? It
seems probable that the skill involved must have been either much admired
or had religious importance for it to have been depicted on the fresco.
We also find depictions of women involved in certain agricultural tasks,
tending fruit trees or gathering crocuses. These scenes are often assumed
to show ritual activity, such as tending sacred trees, or goddesses performing
crop fertility magic or ritual. Even if this interpretation is correct, it may
also reflect some of the normal tasks carried out by women, which would
not be at all surprising in the light of the evidence for the continued
involvement of women in agriculture, discussed earlier.
Even more enlightening than the frescoes from Crete itself, perhaps, is a
series of paintings from Akrotiri. on the island of Thera (Santorini), 9 northeast of Crete, where extensive remains of a town contemporary with the
Minoan civilisation have been excavated. The site has been remarkably
well preserved ·because it was covered by volcanic ash and lava after the
island's volcano exploded and destroyed the town in the sixteenth century
BC. One of the most impressive frescoes comes from the 'West House'. It
extends around three walls of a room, and shows three towns, each on a
separate land mass, separated by a sea on which ships are sailing. In each
of the towns a variety of activities is taking place. If the rule that men are
painted brown and women white also applies at Akrotiri, then the only
women depicted seem to be watching from the roof-tops in one of the towns
while others, wearing long full skirts with contrasting bodices, are shown
carrying water jugs on their heads. There seem to be no women on the
113
Women in Prehistory
ships, nor in other active roles on the land. Where are these towns? On
Crete, or Thera? And does this fresco show another ritual or mythological
scene. or does it give a true perspective on the lives of Minoan women?
Turning to the architecture of the palaces t~emselves: the visitor to any
of the excavated sites will not fail to be impressed by the complexity of their
design. Numerous rooms of various sizes are arranged around an open
courtyard: at Knossos one group of rooms has been labelled the 'Queen's
Suite', containing the 'Queen's megaron' or hall and the 'Queen's bathroom'.
This has led some writers to argue that as the queen had her own suite of
rooms, she must have had privacy and independence: 'one can hardly
avoid seeing in this arrangement a nice respect for the fair sex, as well as
due appreciation of their company' .10 Alternatively it has been argued that
this shows that Minoan women were 'modest creatures', or that they were
regarded as inferiors and relegated to an isolated part of the palace. Rather
than argue with either of these almost equally unverifiable assertions. we
need to look at the evidence which led to these rooms being identified as
the queen's suite in the first place. Trying to work out the use to which a
particular area was put, be it a room, a whole house or an outdoor space.
is one of the greatest problems facing an archaeologist digging a prehistoric
site. Occasionally the shape, size or location of the area will be helpful. or
the presence of features such as a hearth, which suggests that cooking took
place there or that the room was kept warm and thus used as domestic
living space. More often, clues are provided by artefacts found in the room,
and in modern excavations plotting the exact location of each artefact helps
to provide an even more detailed picture. For example, large areas of the
Minoan palaces consist of long narrow rooms, lined with huge ceramic jars
or pithoi, in some of which have been found the residues of cereal crops,
grapes and olives. These rooms. then, were clearly designed and used as
store-rooms. In other rooms evidence for craft activities has been found.
Tools connected with a particular trade or craft. raw materials ready for
use or as waste pieces, and finished, partly finished or incorrectly made
objects may identify a room as a craft workshop. For example, at Knossos
there is the workshop of a stone-vase maker, with unfinished stone utensils
and abandoned tools, and at Mallia a seal-engraver's workshop has been
found.
But what might we expect to find in a bedroom, given that only in
exceptional circumstances, which do not occur at Knossos, are wood,
textiles or similar organic materials preserved? And how might a queen's
bedroom look different from a king's (or anyone else's)? Perhaps the queen
shared a bedroom with the king. Indeed, in Homer's Odyssey, written
several centuries later but possibly referring in part to a period shortly after
the heyday of Minoan Crete, Odysseus and his wife Penelope certainly share
II4
The Bronze Age
a bedroom. And anyway can we be sure that the people living at Knossos
were in fact a king and queen?
.. In the south-east corner of the palace at Knossos a series of interconnected
rooms opening off a huge staircase were found. Some of these rooms are
large and lit by light wells open to the sky above. One, known as the Hall
of the Double Axes, is a particularly large and airy double room with a
veranda and finely carved ashlar masonry, with a double axe incised on
each block. As the excavator, Arthur Evans, considered this room one of
the pleasantest in the palace, he thought that it would probably have been
the ruler's room, in which he dispensed justice and performed other duties.
A few rooms away, and accessible by a number of different routes, is
another large room, also well lit by light wells. In the light well outside this
room fragments of frescoes, one with a sea scene and dolphins and the
other depicting a dancing girl, were found. These scenes were restored on
the walls of the room, and as they were imagined to show 'feminine
subjects' it was thought that this room might have been used by the queen.
Would modern analogy bear out the assumption that dancing girls are
more likely to have been found on the walls of a woman's room than a
man's? In more recent excavations at other Minoan palaces, similar suites
of rooms have been discovered, almost identical in layout and in their
location within the palace. While we can assume that they all had the
same or similar functions, we need not accept Evans' interpretation of these
functions. Perhaps he was right that the layout, lighting arrangements and
decorations indicated domestic quarters, but numerous different interpretations could be made for the individual rooms. Why not a bedroom and a
living room, or a morning room, a reception room or a dining room? To
assume that the two best rooms were for the king and queen respectively
is to make assumptions about the social organisation of the palace which
are really not justified without much more detailed theoretical or practical
evidence. Such assumptions probably tell us more about the attitudes and
social behaviour of the late Victorian excavators than those of the Minoans.
Elsewhere in the palace of Knossos, Evans found the plaster remains of
two seats, with a large hollowed centre, lower and wider than the throne
in the 'Throne Room'. In the frescoes women are often depicted squatting
rather than sitting, so he argued that this lower seat would have been
more comfortable for a woman. He does not, however, discuss the other
implication, that women with wider bottoms need wider seats! 11 Both these
lower seats are in rooms which seem to be workrooms, and probably
kitchen areas, so it may be either that lower seats were more practical or
comfortable for tasks which were carried out on the floor, or that women
were employed in kitchen work.
Although Sir Arthur Evans himself was quite cautious about his
115
Women in Prehistory
interpretation of the 'Queen's Rooms'. numerous writers since then have
built on this clearly hypothetical identification in an attempt to prove their
own hypotheses about the status of Minoan wome~: i.e., either that, having
their own quarters they were 'modest creatures', or thatft showed the high
esteem in which they were held. Whatever conclusions about the position
of Minoan women, even high-status women, can be drawn from the
frescoes, it seems highly dubious that they can be backed up by the
architectural evidence of the palaces themselves.
The final aspect of Minoan culture which has been used as a basis for
hypotheses about the status of women is the so-called 'snake goddess'
figurines. 12 Found frequently not only in the palaces, but also elsewhere
on Crete, these figurines are made of terracotta or of faience, a glass-like
substance. The figures are bare-breasted, with long hair tied at the back
with a large bow. They wear full-length skirts. and one or more snakes are
twisted around their uplifted hands. The figurines are usually found only
in certain parts of the palaces, which, because they also regularly contain
features such as structures thought to be raised altars, are interpreted as
shrines or temples. The discovery of similar figures, along with other models
of animals, birds, snakes and trees, in caves on top of some of the Cretan
mountains, has led to these caves also being considered as shrines. Similar
representations of women also occur in frescoes and on other objects, such
as sarcophagi,or coffins, and smaller items such as rings and seals. In these
depictions they are sometimes shown apparently being venerated by other
people, mainly women. And women, too, arc shown taking part in ritual
activities, such as slaughtering animals on sacrificial tables and pouring
libations. Notwithstanding the arguments put forward in Chapter 2 for the
uncertainty of the function of earlier, Neolithic, figurines, which have
some similarities with these Minoan figures, the consistent provenance and
design of the latter and the way in which they appear on the frescoes all
suggest that they represent some woman or women who held a special
place in the society. Is this a goddess, as Evans and many other Minoan
scholars have suggested, or a real woman. perhaps a priestess or votary,
who made offerings to, or had a special place in the worship of, the deity
or deities, or a queen or other woman who lived in the palace? The latter
seems unlikely, unless she also fulfilled the role of priestess or goddess, as
the dress and hairstyles depicted on the frescoes and on the snake women
are quite unlike those of the apparently normally dressed women portrayed
occasionally on seal-stones. The Neolithic figurines, by contrast, are much
simpler and not found in special contexts.
So, what can we say positively about the position of women in Minoan
society? Can any inferences about the kinship pattern. whether it was
matrilineal or patrilineal. be drawn? Does the evidence described above
116
Women in Prehistory
indicate that Minoan Crete might have been a matriarchal society, as has
been suggested both by some of the earliest scholars and by recent feminists?
The frescoes certainly show women involed in a wide variety of activities,
some physical. Other scenes imply their participation in aspects of the public
sphere, for example watching some mass audience event and leading
processions. There may well be some connection here with religious ritual,
in which women, in the form either of goddesses or of cult leaders or
priestesses, or both, certainly appear to predominate. But it is important to
bear in mind that all the evidence comes from the palaces, which clearly
were primarily occupied by the wealthy or higher strata of society, and
that the frescoes presumably reflect the interests of these people. Taken at
face value, it certainly seems that elite women may have had more status
and participated in a wider range of activities than women in many other
societies. But the question of how relevant the frescoes and other evidence
are to the lives of most women living in Crete during the Minoan period
remains unclear. We still have little or no basis for considering the lives of
the majority of women living in the countryside, and it cannot be assumed
that because high-class women enjoyed some status within their own
society, other women did too.
Finally, as regards matriarchy, the meaning and implications of the idea
have been discussed in detail in an earlier chapter, and I have also tried to
show not only how little evidence there is in any living or documented
society, but also how difficult it would be to prove from archaeological
data. Even if we may hypothesise that women. or at least women of higher
status, may have had a better deal in Minoan Crete than in many other
later societies, it is impossible to argue that they actually held power.
Equally, however, as in most other prehistoric societies, there is no evidence
that men held power at the expense of women.
Burials, grave goods and wealth in north-west Europe
The archaeological evidence for the Bronze Age in north-west Europe differs
greatly from that for Minoan Crete. Whereas most of what we know
about the Minoans comes from the palaces, very little is known about the
dwellings of the contemporaneous population north and west of the Alps.
Instead. particularly in the early phases of the Bronze Age. we have the
buried bodies of the people themselves. In most parts of north-west Europe
at this period the burial rites usually involved inhumation with a variety
of grave goods, most of which were probably the personal possessions of
the deceased. From these we can get a very clear picture of the sort of
things worn and used by women, and how they differed from those used
by men. The quantity and quality of grave goods buried with different
118
The Bronze Age
individuals can give an indication of the degree of equality or social differentiation within the society, and the bodies themselves can provide inforlnation about the relative ages at which women and men died, their stature,
and some aspects of their health. The details which have emerged from
studies of these burials vary considerably for different parts of Europe, and,
as so often with archaeological evidence, there is much ambiguity and
disagreement about how the burials are to be interpreted, and the implications of the grave goods.
Despite this, some features are common throughout the area. Most
striking is the fact that the grave goods found with women are invariably
different from those buried with men. For the first time in European prehistory it is clear that sex is a primary factor of social differentiation. It is
possible, however, that an even greater contrast existed between those
entitled to formal burial and those who were not, as it seems unlikely that
the number of contemporaneous burials which have been found in any
one area is sufficient to account for the entire population. However, among
those who were buried, there is a greater contrast in the grave goods, and
in some areas in the details of burial, such as the side on which the body
is laid, between women and men than there is, for instance, between
deceased individuals of different age groups. 13 The pattern follows modern
Western expectations of sexual stereotypes. Woman are regularly buried
with a variety of ornaments and jewellery, such as pins, necklaces and
bracelets (and in some areas they frequently also have little knives, sometimes described as daggers, as well), while men are just as regularly buried
with weapons. The detail of these weapons varies considerably, from
daggers and spearheads to swords, but the distinction between them and
the female ornaments is clear.
In Scandinavia a small number of exceptionally well-preserved burials
provide evidence not only of contrasts in grave goods made of inorganic
materials, but also in dress, as woollen clothes have survived. The bodies
were placed in oak tree-trunk coffins which produced an effect like the
tanning of leather, in addition to which the graves have remained waterlogged.14 Men usually seem to have worn a kilt-like garment, a cloak and
a cap, while women may have worn one of two different types of costume.
One of the best-known burials is from Borum Esh0j in Denmark, where a
woman, aged between 50 and 60 and about r .5 7 m (5 ft 2 in) tall, was
buried wearing a short tunic, perhaps over a full-length skirt, tied with two
belts. She also wore a hair net and several pieces of jewellery. By contrast
a younger woman, between r 8 and 20 years old, found at Egtved, wore a
knee-length loosely corded skirt and a short sleeved tunic, both made from
brown sheep's wool. Like the Borum Esh0j woman, the Egtved girl wore a
variety of bronze ornaments. Next to her body was a bundle containing
119
Women in Prehistory
the cremated remains of a younger girl, aged 8 or 9 years. The age difference
is too small to suggest that she could have been the woman's daughter.
Cremated bodies have been found in similar juxtaposition with inhumations
elsewhere in the European Bronze Age, and have led to theories that
servants or slaves were sacrificed on the death· of a mistress or master.
These burials are good examples of the two types of female costume
found in a number of graves in Bronze Age Denmark. A favourite ornament
seems to have been a belt with a large bronze disc in the centre, and the
women also almost invariably wore a hair-net or hair-band. The principal
difference between the two styles lies in the length of the skirt, and has
been interpreted as summer and winter dress or as marking a distinction
between married and unmarried women. 15 The short length and 'revealing
openness' of the skirt of the Egtved woman have led to numerous comments
in the literature since the burial was discovered in the 1920s which are
typical of Western stereotyping and prudishness. For example, 'it would
have been more sensible and modest (even by the standards of primitive
people) if the material [of the tunic] had been made into the skirt and the
string work - a fish net - used to drape the upper part of the body ... ', and
'it is hardly fit to be called a skirt, being not so much as a covering for her
31 Reconstruction drawing of three different styles of women's dress and one man's,
from Bronze Age Scandinavia. From Burgess, 1 y8o: drawing by Angie Townshend.
120
Women in Prehistory
nakedness' .16 The long garment of the Borum Esh0j woman was deemed
to be far more appropriate, and the short skirt has sometimes been reconstructed as an overskirt, which would have been worn over a longer one.
However, one early but detailed study of the burial ·questioned whether
full-length skirts were worn at all; the Borum Esh0j woman, it was
suggested, was in fact covered by a burial shroud, and she too may have
worn a much shorter skirt. 17 Bronze figurines, from the same area but of
Later Bronze Age date, depict women wearing the same short skirts and
confirm that they were worn alone, although one of these statuettes seems
to be wearing a long skirt. There are also a number of other burials where
the cloth of the skirt has not been preserved, but where small tubes of thin
bronze sheet have been found, occasionally with enough textile to indicate
that the tubes decorated the fringes of cord skirts similar to that of the
Egtved woman and to the garments apparently worn by most of the
figurines. It may therefore be that normal attire for women in Bronze Age
Denmark included a short open skirt, or that it may have been a special
garment for ceremonial, including burial, and that the figurines had some
ritual function, or depict goddesses or votaries.
Before looking at the burial customs in more detail, two important
methodological caveats need to be made. Patterns of burial practice were
originally studied by comparing skeletal material with artefacts found with
the body. More recent studies have also assessed the evidence of the bones
quite independently of the grave goods. though the sex of many, and
a
3 3 Small bronze figurines of women from Late Bronze Age Denmark: a. locality
unknown; b. the handle of a knife from Itzehoe, Holstein. After Broholm and Hald,
1940.
122
The Bronze Age
probably most, burials has been assumed from the nature of the grave
goods. Many problems are involved in reliably assessing the sex of excavated
skeletons, but it is clearly essential, especially in the present context, to
know of any exceptions to the usual rule of female and male grave goods.
For example, were any of the 'weapons' used as badges of office, and, if so,
did a woman occasionally, or even one or twice in very special circumstances, now unknown, hold that office or possess that 'weapon'? Or was
there any way in which someone could opt out of the usual gender roles,
a possibility well attested in the ethnographic record? These questions could
only be answered if every skeleton were independently sexed.
Secondly, the majority of burials are found with no surviving grave goods
at all, and the sex of these individuals has rarely been examined. It is
therefore particularly difficult to make any assumptions about them. Other
examples have one or more artefacts buried with the body, and the usual
argument is that the more artefacts there are, the 'wealthier' or more
important the individual. However, all burials may actually have been
accompanied by other items which no longer survive, such as food offerings,
simple or rich textiles and other artefacts made of organic materials, and
which may have represented a completely different 'degree of wealth' from
the more obvious grave goods.
Nevertheless, with these provisos, let us consider the grave goods found
with Early Bronze Age burials in more detail. Bronze Age burial rites are
similar throughout most of Europe, though in each area there are local
differences in the details of the grave goods and the way in which the
body is buried. We will examine three areas, south-west Czechoslovakia,
southern England, and Denmark and southern Sweden, where interesting
studies have been carried out which throw light on gender roles.
The Branc cemetery of south-west Slovakia
One of the very few archaeological studies which has specifically considered
the status of women is the work by Susan Shennan, 18 who has analysed
burials with grave goods excavated from a cemetery at Branc, in southwest Slovakia. Just over 300 burials were found here, and males and
females were shown to have characteristically different grave goods and
modes of burial. The sex of the bones was assessed by a palaeopathologist
quite independently of the grave goods (though differences are only apparent in adults), and the age of each person at death was assessed. On the
basis of the degree of wear on teeth and the fusion of certain bones and
joints, the bones were ascribed to five- to ten-year age brackets. This
information was then correlated with data about the way in which the
body was buried and the type of grave goods placed with it. Hypotheses
123
Women in Prehistory
about what certain objects may have represented in terms of symbols of
age, sex or status and how the goods may have been acquired by the
individual were put forward on the basis of these data. While most men
(69 per cent) in the Branc cemetery were buried lying on their right side,
most women (8 r per cent) were laid on their left. Although it might be
interesting to speculate about why the custom of burying men and women
on different sides was not strictly adhered to, it seems most likely that the
reason for the discrepancy is incorrect sexing of the skeletons, as 1 oo per
cent certainty is not always possible.
Artefacts found with the bodies included ornaments, weapons and tools
made of copper, stone and bone. The number and quality of grave goods
varied considerably from individual to individual. Shennan devised a system
of wealth scores for each artefact, based on how difficult it would have
been to obtain the raw material and an estimate of the time needed to
manufacture the object. From this it was possible to calculate the 'wealth'
buried with each individual. If, she argued, wealth was inherited, we would
expect to find some rich burials of young people, who would not have
had the opportunity to acquire wealth through their own efforts or skill.
Similarly, it might be possible to assess the relative wealth of women
compared with men. Before considering some of Shennan's conclusions. a
note of caution must be expressed about attempting to assess the value of
grave goods in this way. This is a particular problem when two more or
less mutually exclusive groups are compared, as often occurs between
women's and men's sets of grave goods. Several other archaeological studies
have made similar attempts to assess the value of artefacts in order to allow
a comparison of the wealth of one burial with that of another. Different
and often conflicting scales of values have been created by different scholars
studying very similar material. Moreover, these reflect our own scales of
value. How can we assess the value of a gold bracelet compared with a
bronze one, or with a shale bracelet? If a type is rare, this may imply that
it was hard to obtain, or, alternatively that it was not very popular. The
value allotted to manufacturing time depends on the value placed on
human labour: the scarcity of a raw material may have been perceived to
be quite different from its actual rarity. How might a society equate the
weight of a quantity of raw material with the skill of manufacture of the
finished object? And beauty is a particularly subjective value. In most of
the Bronze Age graves, women and men have almost totally different ranges
of artefacts, so while it may be comparatively easy to compare two women's
graves. it is far more difficult to assess the relative wealth of women and
men. Such studies, then. can only serve as approximate guides to the
balance of resources within a society. rather than as a precise statement of
social stratification.
124
The Bronze Age
Males
Females
Mature-senile
Mature
Adult-mature
r\dult
r-------L--~~:,,:m~~~~~-::'!':
Juvenile-adult
Juvenile
Infant II
Infant I
..l,:,:O:~}m-;1_:,:,:·---•~].-~:r_"':,:_::ti:o:_>•'"'~~
...:,:,:,;$~
......
'"':
....
m
..*l'l'it:'-'l'.:•~~---------,
lfflRich graves
34 Distribution by age and sex of the burials at Bram::, with rich graves highlighted.
From Shennan. 1975.
Returning to the Branc study, the community which was buried in the
cemetery was a small one, consisting of about 30-40 people at any one
time; half of these were children. It has been argued that the wide range
of combinations of grave goods suggests a quite complex society with a
number of different status positions or classes. Some graves had a particularly large number of artefacts, and gave a high wealth score. Certain
types of artefact were only found in the richest graves, and rich women
tended to have very similar sets of artefacts. This suggests that the objects
were being used as symbols of status, or sumptuary goods, a term used in
anthropology to define possessions which only a certain group of individuals
are allowed to wear or carry, and which make their position immediately
obvious to everyone in the society. Typical examples from our own society
would be the regalia of a monarch, or a nurse's uniform. The richest
women were all in the juvenile-adult age group or older, and there were
proportionately few rich female infants. These data can be interpreted in a
number of different ways. The most traditional would be that the rich
graves reflect wealth achieved at marriage: some children may have had
marriages arranged at birth, but then died young. The greater proportion
of rich females than males could be taken to suggest that polygyny - where
men may have more than one wife - was practised. On the other hand,
the evidence could just as well indicate a society in which women held
high status.
A higher proportion of young girls (presumably defined either on the
basis of grave goods, or by which side they were buried on, as the sex of
children is not apparent from their bones) than boys were 'rich' (Fig. 34),
and this could be used to argue that female wealth was ascribed at birth,
that is that these girls were born into rich families with the expectation of
inheritance in later life. If male wealth was also ascribed in this way, more
wealth may have been given to girls than boys. Alternatively, the lower
125
Women in Prehist<Jry
ratio of rich females who died in childhood compared with the child
mortality rate of rich males could suggest that rich girls were more carefully
looked after, perhaps through better nutrition or living conditions, than
rich boys (though some imbalance would be expected-in any society, since
male infants are always more prone to illness and death than female babies).
If Shennan's relative scaling of female and male grave goods is correct, it
seems that rich women were considerably richer than rich men, and were
particularly marked out by a clear-cut group of possessions, whereas the
rich men's grave goods were far less uniform or distinctive. This suggests
that the high status of these women was marked in a way obvious to the
whole society. If this position was hereditary, it would explain why greater
care might have been taken in nurturing rich female infants, especially if
descent was matrilineal so that the future of the group depended on the
survival of young women. The same statistics could, however, also be used
to come to quite different conclusions: that the society was patrilineal and
polygynous; that rich artefacts were given to women on marriage; and that
wealth was owned by men but displayed on women, such as has been
usual in more recent Western society. This problem merely emphasises the
ambiguity of much of the archaeological record. However, if the former
interpretation is accepted, the Branc material, and that from other cemeteries in the surrounding area which offer the same picture, may suggest
that in south-west Slovakia in the Early Bronze Age women had high
status. were nurtured more carefully than boys as children, and owned
distinctive 'sumptuary' objects which defined the position of some leading
women in a way which did not apply to men.
Work on other cemeteries in the surrounding area 19 has suggested that
the appearance of rich women with distinctive costume was a feature
which built up gradually in the area. In all but the earliest cemetery women
have more grave goods than men. and a small number of 'rich' women
have a special but standard costume shown in the archaeological record
by elaborate necklaces, metal pins and leg garters. Only adult women
wear this special dress, and men have no equivalent uniform attire. The
recurrence of the pattern at several cemeteries suggests that the same
symbolism was used to unite women over a wide area, although probably
only one or two women living within each community at any one time
would have worn the costume. It also seems that the difference between
rich and poor women decreased over time, though male burials continued
to be marked by wealth distinctions. Could this be a sign of female solidarity
in contrast to continuing male competition? Furthermore. it is noteworthy
that wealth distinctions in south-west Slovakia are nothing like as marked
as those in many other parts of Europe at the time. Although these are not
Shennan's conclusions, I would like to suggest that the women in sump126
The Bronze Age
tuary costume could, perhaps, have been part of an area-wide council of
women, or similar women-led grouping, the effect of which might have
been to discourage, rather than encourage, the development of extremes
of wealth, and perhaps power, found in other regions.
Southern Britain in the Early Bronze Age
Studies of British Early Bronze Age burials have also shown significant
differences between the sexes, though, as elsewhere in Europe, too much
discussion has been based solely on grave goods, without independent
skeletal studies. The usual practice involves burying the body under a
round earth or stone mound (barrow or cairn). These are usually very
carefully built, concealing internal structural features: in some cases their
external shape is more complex than a simple hemisphere, especially in the
area of southern England known as Wessex, where some of the barrows
cover a group of very rich burials which have been given the name 'Wessex
culture' .20 Two of these barrow forms are particularly relevant here. The
'disc barrow' is characterised by an annular raised mound around a shallow
ditch; a small mound in the centre covers the burial or burials. This type
is usually found only within major groups or cemeteries of barrows of
varied forms. The 'bell barrow' has bell- or S-shaped curved sides created
by a flat area or 'berm' between the mound and a surrounding ditch. These
disc and bell barrows are invariably associated with female and male
burials respectively. The grave goods found in them also show interesting
differences (Fig. 3 5): 21 they include a variety of rich artefacts made of gold,
bronze and other materials, but the range of grave goods found with the
men seems to be about five times as great as those with women. The objects
found with women typically include gold, amber, shale and faience bead
necklaces and other ornaments, small bronze knives and small pottery
cups. Men are buried with bronze daggers, stone battle axes and other
weapons, a variety of bronze and bone pins, and bone tweezers.
These Wessex culture burials contrast with another group also found in
southern England, broadly contemporary or slightly later in date, and
known as the Deverel-Rimbury tradition or culture. It is characterised by
small farming settlements with associated fields (see Chapter 5) near which
a cemetery of small round barrows is often found. 22 The Deverel-Rimbury
cemeteries are mainly situated on the fringes of the Wessex upland area,
away from the chalk. Each barrow typically covered a number of burials,
few of which contained any grave goods, and which included the cremated
remains of both women and men, of all ages, in an apparently natural
balance.
The reason for the contrast between the Wessex culture and the Deverel127
Women in Prehistory
Rimbury burials is worth considering here, as it is possible to interpret it
as indirect evidence that Deverel-Rimbury women had higher status than
those of the Wessex culture. The Deverel-Rimbury settlements and barrows
are located on soils which are very productive for agriculture, and especially
for arable farming. 2 3 As we have seen, women were often involved in crop
growing, and if this was the case here, Deverel-Rimbury women would
probably have played a greater part in food production than the women
of the Wessex culture, which, situated on chalk downlands, probably
concentrated on sheep farming. 24 Ethnographic evidence indicates that in
pastoral societies wealth is usually displayed in a much more showy fashion,
in the form of portable objects such as jewellery, than in agricultural
groups. The apparent wealth of the Wessex culture may, therefore, perhaps
in part at least, be illusory. In pastoral societies the status of women is often
low, 25 so that Deverel-Rimbury women would probably have been more
g
.
.
nVi)
I
C)
-- 0
3 5 Grave goods from two
typical rich Wessex culture
burials.
( Right) From the Manton
barrow, Wiltshire, found with
one of the only skeletons in the
group which have been
independently identified as
female: a knife-dagger (length
4.6 cm): shale, amber and
chalk beads: a halberd pendant
with sheet gold: bronze awls:
and two small pottery vessels.
(Facing page) Found with a
presumed male burial from
Wilsford (G2.3). Wiltshire: a
dagger (length 20 cm): a knifedagger: a whetstone-pendant: a
bronze pin, and a bone tube,
perhaps a flute. After Gerloff.
197_s.
u
©
Qb
The Bronze Age
highly valued members of their community than their Wessex counterparts.
It has also been argued that these differences in status were reflected in
differences in marriage patterns. Within the Wessex culture, the theory
goes, women, who played only _asmall active part within the community
and had few rights, were exchanged as marriage partners exogamously that is, outside their own community - almost as part of a trade deal. Upon
marriage they would thus have been lost to their own community as a
labour force, and deemed to have little value other than as objects of
exchange. In the Deverel-Rimbury culture, by contrast, endogamous
custom, in which the population married within the local group, is thought
more likely to have prevailed, as a means by which a valuable part of the
work force remained within the community: this is possible in villages
made up of a number of families. Land or property may have been inherited
by either sex, again giving greater equality between women and men. 26
~
.!:!(~.;
' .'.~~:
: V
0
.:/
..
·::--
"' 0
~
129
Women in Prehistory
Burials and hoards in southern Scandinavia
Our third area of interest is Denmark and southern Sweden, where a
number of key studies of Bronze Age burials have been carried out, high.'
lighting a pattern which may be mirrored tµroughout Europe. Hardly any
of the burials in these areas have been examined to ascertain the sex of the
individual from the skeletal remains. As elsewhere, most of them have been
assumed to be either female or male on the basis of any artefacts found
with the body, although many burials (presumably those of poorer members
of society) had few or no grave goods. Men are typically buried with
weapons, razors or tweezers, while women have arm-rings, belt plates, pins
and a particular type of brooch. Knives, fibula brooches and "double studs'
are found with both women and men, and small daggers sometimes
accompany female burials, although they are more usually associated with
male ones. 27
One of the earliest studies to attempt to assess the wealth of Early
Bronze Age burials was that by Klaus Randsborg 28 in Denmark. His initial
observations concluded that twice as many men were buried with grave
goods as women, and a similar pattern has recently been reported from
southern Sweden. 29 Randsborg's method of assessing wealth differs from
that of Shennan, discussed above. As raw metals are not found in Denmark
and would therefore have had to be imported. Randsborg thought that the
total weights of bronze and gold used in the grave goods would give a
reasonable estimate of the status of the individual. It is noteworthy that
twice as many men's graves contained gold objects as did those of women.
Moreover, many male graves contained over 200 grammes of bronze.
whereas this was true of only very few women's graves. If the weight of
gold in the graves is also taken into account, the difference between female
and male graves becomes very marked indeed.
From this Randsborg argued that women must have had considerably
lower status than men. However, an obvious problem with this analysis is
that men were usually buried with weapons, which are bound to be heavier
than the jewellery normally found with women. He also subdivided the
material into chronological phases, which showed that as the Early Bronze
Age progressed, more bronze and gold was used in burials and that the
relative proportion found in the graves of women increased over time. If
these artefacts are a true reflection of all the grave goods deposited, this
suggests that, from a low point at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age,
the status of women gradually improved.
In the later part of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia. as in other parts of
northern and western Europe, there was a change in burial· patterns and
the number of richly equipped burials decreases. Funerary rituals which
130
Tile Bronze Age
b. Gold
a. Bronze
(,
no. of graves
50
no. of graves
40
30
20
10
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
5
I O l 5 20 2 5 30
gr. bronze
gr. gold
Male graves
no. of graves
so
40
15
no. of graves
rn
1()
20
5
]()
400
200
6()0
800
100()
l 200
'i
gr. bronze
lO
l 5 20
gr. gold
Female graves
36 The total weight of a. bronze and b. gold objects found in male and female graves
of the Danish Early Bronze Age. After Randsborg 1974.
have left archaeological traces become less common. In some areas the
inhumations which in the Early Bronze Age were often accompanied by a
range of bronze ornaments and equipment were replaced in the later Bronze
Age by cremations which had either no grave goods at all, or usually only
small items such as pins or tweezers.
As well as in graves, bronze objects are frequently found in hoards, where
anything from two to several dozen or more bronze artefacts seem to have
been deliberately buried together. Such hoards, which have been found all
over Europe, date from all periods of the Bronze Age, but particularly from
the later phases, when in some areas they seem to take the place of the ,
elaborate burial depositions of the Early Bronze Age. The objects have
usually been found in good condition, and the range of artefacts in each
hoard is often similar to the assemblage accompanying an inhumation
burial in the early period. In some areas of Europe 'female' and 'male'
hoards can thus be distinguished. In Scandinavia, groups of artefacts which
131
Women in Prehistory
regularly recur, and are characteristic either of female or of male burials
of the Early Bronze Age, are also found together as a group in contemporary
hoards. This makes it seem likely that the hoards also represent the possessions of an individual, and that female and male' hoards may be distinguished. In the late Bronze Age the hoards, but not the burials, occur,
and the suggestion that they too represent either women or men rests on
analogy with the types of tools, ornaments and weapons buried with each
sex in the Early Bronze Age and depicted on a small number of contemporary human figurines. The hoards can therefore be analysed in a
similar way to the burials, and studied either alone or in conjunction with
them to suggest differences in the possessions and status of women and
men, through the phases of the Nordic or Scandinavian Bronze Age. Six
periods, I to VI, are traditionally recognised in the area, and a number of
studies have demonstrated that grave goods and hoards show a similar
pattern of increasing 'wealth' in the complexity and quantity of femalerelated artefacts, while the quantity and quality of male goods remains
constant or even declines.
A study of Danish hoards by Janet Levy 30 showed that, except in Period
II, when the number of female and male hoards was equal, female hoards
outnumbered male ones. In Period II, the later part of the Early Bronze
Age, male hoards contained a wide range of artefacts; this range then
declined gradually until Period VI, the final phase of the Bronze Age, when
the decline was steep. Female depositions, on the other hand, became more
numerous from Periods lI to V, and then matched the decline in male
depositions in Period VI. The design of ornaments worn by women also
seems to have increased in complexity. until, in Period V, they appear to
have been completely impractical to wear, while male swords became less
varied in style and showed less artistic skill in their manufacture as the
Bronze Age progressed.
Another key study focuses on the contents of depositions - graves, hoards
and single finds - from Bronze Age Denmark. but concentrates on changes
in the numbers of swords, associated with men, and of ornaments, associated with women.11 Kristian Kristiansen shows that during the course of
the Bronze Age the number of swords declined, while female ornaments
increased (Fig. 38a). In Period I, the earliest phase of the Bronze Age, hardly
any female ornaments were produced; after an increase in Period II, the
number of female depositions remained approximately constant throughout
the remainder of the Bronze Age. The pattern of male depositions was
rather different. The number of male burials and hoards which included
swords decreased, although the overall number of male depositions
remained constant. We therefore find in Bronze Age Denmark a similar
pattern to that already discussed: from a situation in the Early Bronze Age
132
Women in Prehistory
where women were scarcely represented either in the hoards or the burials,
the difference in 'wealth' between female and male depositions became less
marked during the course of the Bronze Age.
The recurring pattern shown in all these studies can be interpreted in
either of two ways. It may signify a shift in· the way in which men chose
to display prestige goods, from demonstrating their wealth through their
own possessions to using women as a vehicle for such display; alternatively
the pattern may be demonstrating an actual shift in the balance of status
between the sexes.
Kristiansen 32 himself prefers the former interpretation, emphasising a
possible change in attitude to the demonstration of male status, in which
the man dresses his female kin in rich ornaments rather than displaying
status objects himself. He argues that at around the middle of the Bronze
a. Denmark
b. Southern Sweden
100%
90%
90%
80%
7(J<}{)
70%
60%
50%
40%
40%
30'Xi
30%
20'.%
20%
10%
10%
fl
IT!
IV
V
Periods of the Bronze Age
VI
II
lll
IV
\'
VI
Periods of the Bronze Age
38 The proportion of female (shadedarm) and male hoards and burials in southern
Scandinavia in successive phases of the Bronze Age: a. Denmark. shown by swords
(male) and ornaments (female) in burials and hoards (data after Kristiansen, 1984):
b. southern Sweden, shown by the relative number of hoards with weapons and with
ornaments (data after Larson, r 986).
134
The Bronze Age
Age the need to display male wealth and status in burials decreased, as the
hierarchic social structure which had evolved in the early Bronze Age
stabilised. Therefore, the apparent decline in male wealth does not reflect
a real decline but rather an ideological change in the manifestation of
wealth and status, and thus mainly mirrors male attitudes and behaviour.
This is related to the increased importance given to female ornaments, and
shows that male wealth was being invested increasingly in wives and
daughters. Kristiansen argues that an important role of women was to act
as pawns in long-distance alliance networks (to be considered in the next
section), which were necessary for the continued flow of bronze into
Scandinavia.
Alternatively, it may be argued that the same changes demonstrate a
real shift towards greater equality between women and men at a time when
society as a whole became more stable and competition between groups
diminished, so that a fixed ladder of rank within society had become
established.
If the status of women was improving at this time, this may be related
to a shift away from pastoralism and towards arable agriculture, for which
there is some evidence in Scandinavia during the later Bronze Age. The
explanation for this, relating the status of women to the display of wealth
and the subsistence pattern, is similar to the argument we have already
seen for southern England. Evidence for this change is provided in Scandinavia by the increase in cereals found in pollen analyses, and the apparent
abandonment of some grassland, which reverted to woodland. 33 If the
change in the apparent quantity of wealth associated with women were
merely due to men's choice of how to demonstrate their own wealth, we
might expect the exact opposite of the pattern displayed, as men far more
frequently use women to parade their status in pastoral than in agricultural
societies. Although the role.of women in agricultural production may never
have been as significant in the Bronze Age or later periods as it was in the
early Neolithic, it was probably considerably greater than in pastoralist
societies, where women typically play very little part in production.
Randsborg 34 points out that settlement in Denmark appears to have
expanded from land best suited to an agricultural economy based primarily
on animal breeding into areas more suitable for arable. Regional differences
in the status of women within Denmark, measured on the same basis, have
also been examined, and again the relative status of women appears to
have been higher in areas of Denmark where the soils are better suited to
arable farming. There is also evidence to suggest that women may have
been responsible for harvesting cereals. 3 .s Small bronze sickles are found in
hoards and burials associated with women. These may actually have been
used for cutting crops, or may merely be symbolic expressions of ritual
135
Women in Prehistory
activity, 36 but either explanation could imply that women were involved
in harvesting. The trend away from a concentration on animal breeding
at the beginning of the Bronze Age may have taken place in a number of
parts of Europe, and may have had the same effect o'n women's status in
all these areas.
The significance of the burials and hoards as aspects of religious behaviour in Bronze Age Scandinavia, and particularly the role which women
may have played in ritual, is another possible perspective on the same
material. It has often been argued that most of the Late Bronze Age
hoards from this area were deposited as part of a ritual; as women's goods
predominate, it would be argued that women controlled or performed some
of these rituals themselves, and may have gained status from this activity. 37
This may be linked with the small bronze figurines of late Bronze Age date,
which are usually interpreted as connected with ritual in some way: of
those whose sex is identifiable, most are women, 38 some of whom are
dressed in the short corded skirts also found in early Bronze Age burials.
They are sometimes described as statuettes of mythical beings; 39 some are
in postures, such as bent over backwards, which have been well described
as 'ritual acrobatics' ,40 and may be seen as votaries, rather than the deities
themselves. While the relationship between female deities and the roles of
women in religious practice and their roles and status in real life is not
necessarily clear-cut, as has already been considered, these figurines and
the prominent place of female ornaments in Late Bronze Age Scandinavian
hoards might suggest that this was an area in which women (though on
this evidence not women alone) played a significant part.
The burials with grave goods and the hoards of metalwork thus provide
a rich source of data on which to base a discussion of the position of women
in the Bronze Age. However, it is important to reiterate here the point with
which I began. Of necessity this discussion has focused on burials with
grave goods, which are assumed to be those of the richer or at least
reasonably well-off members of society. Most Bronze Age burials, however,
contain no grave goods at all, and these are thought to be the burials of
the poorer people. We cannot even begin to discuss the relative status of
these less affluent women and men, and if we consider almost any presentday society it will be clear that it would not be justifiable to extrapolate this
information from the theories put forward for wealthier people.
A trade in women?
The evidence provided by burials with grave goods, hoards, and stray finds
of metal objects has also been used to show patterns of trade in Bronze Age
Europe. The most usual method of study is to look at the stylistic features
136
The Bronze Age
of artefacts which are typical of one particular area, and then to examine
whether a type appears in smaller numbers in another area. If so, it can
usually be argued that the object must have been traded or exchanged, or
perhaps carried to the other area by a migrant. As well as trade in finished
objects, trading in raw materials can often also be demonstrated.
Many raw materials, including stone, metals - especially copper - and
the clay from which pottery is made, have distinctive patterns of trace
elements (minerals found in minute quantities). These do not in general
affect the quality or properties of the raw material, but the exact content
of different minerals may be characteristic of the material's provenance. It
is thus possible, by analysing these trace elements, to establish that a
particular sample of copper probably came, for example, from Austria or
Ireland. If that object is found, say, in Sweden, then either the raw material
or the finished artefact must have been brought there from the area of
origin.
Large numbers of often very fine bronze objects are found in Scandinavia,
yet the area itself possesses no source of the raw materials (copper and tin)
necessary to produce them. Analyses of Scandinavian bronze objects have
shown that most of the raw materials come from the ore-rich areas of
central, eastern and south-east Europe, but the distinctive design of Scandinavian Bronze Age metalwork makes it clear that the artefacts were
actually manufactured in Scandinavia. This raises a perennial archaeological problem. What was given in exchange for the raw materials?
Many, if not most, of the materials used in prehistory have not been
preserved. Most items of food, clothes, timber, skins and all other organic
materials have only survived in exceptional circumstances, but would have
been just as important a part of life and trade as the metal and stone objects
and pottery that form such a large part of the archaeological record. So it
often happens that we can see one side of a trade link but not the other,
and the case of Bronze Age Scandinavia is very typical. The problem of
what was traded for the raw bronze has long exercised the minds of
prehistorians in the area. Most have pointed to amber, which is native to
Scandinavia but widely found in graves and other archaeological contexts
throughout much of Bronze Age Europe. The Danish archaeologist Kristiansen has, however, put forward an intriguing alternative suggestion. 41
In the Early Bronze Age, burials with complete sets of ornaments provide
important evidence for trade and inter-regional connections. If someone is
found buried with one or two foreign items, which were made at different
times and in different workshops, or a 'matching set' which was probably
acquired at one time, the objects may have been traded or acquired piecemeal. If, however, a body is accompanied by a series of ornaments, perhaps
made over a length of time but atr from the one area, which is far from
1 37
Women in Prehistory
that in which they were found, then it is reasonable to suggest that the
individual moved from the first area, bringing them all with her or him. A
number of instances of this kind occur in Early Bronze Age contexts in
northern Europe. A woman wearing a set of jewellery from the Liineberg
area of north Germany was found on the Danish island of Zeeland, and
female outfits typical of the Nordic or Scandinavian areas have been found
in north Germany, both in Pomerania and south of the Elbe. Male burials
with Scandinavian costume have not, it seems, been found there. Similarly,
in the Late Bronze Age, Nordic ornaments are commonly found in neighbouring cultural areas of northern Europe in contexts which suggest the
3 9 (right) and 40
U'acingpage)
Bronze Age rock
engravings from
Bohuslan and
Scania. southern
Sweden. While
some figures are
clearly phallic.
others engaged in
similar activities
are not. Are these
women? What
interpretation
should be placed
on the apparently
different costumes
worn by some of
the figures? After
Gelling and
Davidson, 1969.
1.38
•
The Bronze Age
exchange of people rather than just of goods. Both the position of ornaments
on bodies in graves and wear patterns on ornaments found in hoards show
that they were worn in a manner traditional in Scandinavia, but unusual
in the area in which they were found. The reverse pattern - northern
European outfits in Scandinavia - is much rarer than the occurrence of
Scandinavian goods in north Germany. It has also been observed that the
distribution of Nordic female ornaments extends much further south than
the distribution of male objects. On the other hand, foreign objects associated with men are more common in Scandinavia itself than foreign objects
associated with women. Kristiansen's interpretation of this pattern is that
there was an extensive trade network throughout northern Europe: bronze
objects and raw materials may have been the main items of trade, but the
system was backed up by important social contacts and alliances. Often,
perhaps, these were secured by intermarriage between groups, with the
woman moving to her husband's home. These marriage alliances would
ensure continued kinship obligations and regular contacts between the
groups, stimulating continued trading.
Rock art in the Alps and Scandinavia
Another potentially rich source of evidence for the role of women in the
Bronze Age is the rock art found in several locations in Europe. The two
major zones where this art is found are southern Sweden and the southern
•
139
Women in Prehistoru
\
-
,,,,..
.'
•
~ir
T
•
sl
~g;,
,,,,tt
0-
41 Naquane rock, Val Camonica, Italy: engraved scenes including houses, domestic
animals, hunting and various other activities. After Anati, 1961.
Alps. In both these areas rocks are engraved with detailed designs including
scenes showing people involved in various activities. Usually, though often
without clear justification. these engravings are considered to have some
religious function, so there is uncertainty about how far they should be
used as evidence for daily activities.
In Scandinavia, boats, often depicted with people rowing them, are a
favourite scene; other carvings show weapons, sometimes in the hands of
combatants, or scenes of people playing the huge Scandinavian curved
trumpets or lurer. The human figures are of necessity rather crudely drawn,
usually as stick-figures, because pecking the hard granite could have been
no easy task. Deciding whether the artist intended to depict a woman or a
man would be difficult. were it not for the fact that a large number of the
figures have very obvious, erect penises. Is this a convention for representing
males, and if so are all the figures shown without penises women, or is
some other meaning intended? People brandishing swords or daggers
include figures with and without penises, yet it is usually assumed that all
burials with these weapons are male; on the other hand, as has already
been pointed out, much of the work on burials has been done without
__,
The Bronze Age
independent osteological studies of the bones themselves. Another feature
which might define women is 'long hair', a sort of curved pigtail sitting on
the'· head of some figures and extending down the back. 42 If these are the
only women represented, women are very rare; if, on the other hand, all
non-phallic representations are women. they are as common as representations of men, and are shown involved in a wide range of activities.
The most impressive Alpine rock art comes from two locations, Val
Camonica in northern Italy and Monte Bego in south-east France. 43 Scenes
here also show combat, but hunting and farming are depicted too. As in
Scandinavia. some of the figures have obvious penises: warfare and hunting
scenes include figures both with and without them. Emmanuel Anati, who
has carried out most of the recent work at Val Camonica, has calculated
that six out of ten human figures are phallic, and four out of ten are of
indeterminate sex. He also suggests that only about four per cent of the
figures are women, shown praying or dancing, though he does not make
it clear how he identifies them. One scene shows two people guiding a
plough drawn by two animals. Behind them is a figure with a hoe, apparently carrying another figure on its back. This has been interpreted as a
women with a child. If this is indeed a woman, it is important to note that
she has no other features which might identify her as such: this raises the
possibility that many of the other figures may also be women. Also,
assuming that the interpretation of the scene is correct, it is obviously very
significant in that it shows women taking part in agriculture alongside
men.
42 Farming scene from Seradina, Val Camonica. The figures on the right seem to be
a woman with a hoe. carrying a child on her back. They are following a plough drawn
by two animals. After Anati, 196 r.
141
s
The Celtic Iron Age
With the Iron Age we at last enter the era of written records in Europe.
Most of our information about the period still relies on the archaeology of
settlement sites, burials and other excavated sites, and the archaeology of
women is as difficult to disentangle. But while the inhabitants of northwest Europe were themselves technically 'prehistoric', in that they did not
keep written records, the peoples of the Mediterranean, and especially the
Greeks and the Romans, were already producing an extensive body of
literature, including geographies or travel writings and histories which
contained descriptions of the peoples of other parts of Europe. As we shall
see, there exist quite a number of written accounts of the lives of women
in Iron Age Europe. These accounts of course vary considerably in quality
and detail. and their accuracy or otherwise must be carefully weighed up.
The evaluation of these documentary sources and the way in which they
can be used alongside archaeological evidence is more controversial than
might be supposed. A good example of this is the name which is to be given
to the period in question, the last few centuries before the Roman conquest.
In earlier chapters I have referred to the 'women of Neolithic Europe', or
the 'people of the Bronze Age': because we possess no records written either
by people of the societies themselves or by literate neighbouring societies,
we do not know what the various peoples of prehistoric Europe called
themselves; we have to make do with terms invented by nineteenth-century
archaeologists, based on the materials from which some tools were made
at the time. But for the Iron Age we can do better. The classical civilisations
called the people of Europe to the north and west of their own homelands
'Celts', which is presumably a version of the name some of them called
themselves. The earliest references to the Celts occur in the mid-fifth century
BC, and the word is of course still in use today, referring to the peoples of
some areas of western or Atlantic Europe. Geographically it is clear that by
'Celts' the classical world meant people living in an area stretching at least
from the Pyrenees to the Danube. But how much before the fifth century
people called themselves Celts, and over how wide an area. is a controversial
topic and not directly relevant to the present subject. Suffice it to say that
I will follow conventional practice and use the terms Celt and German
(much the same argument applies to the Germanic peoples east of the
Rhine) to describe the inhabitants of north-west Europe. 1
The Celtic Iron Age
Domestic organisation in Iron Age Britain
Settlements of the first millennium BC, especially in Britain, often provide
considerably more evidence, both of structural features and of the material
remains of artefacts and the economy, than those of earlier periods. At a
number of carefully excavated sites these have allowed more discussion of
the use of different buildings and areas within houses. In a few cases
suggestions have been made about the amount of domestic space used by
women and men, and which roles were assigned to each, which in turn
have a bearing on the social roles of women and the status accorded to
them.
As we have already seen, houses, farms and villages provide archaeologists with a wealth of evidence about the society which occupied them.
How archaeologists work out the use of a particular room or space on a
settlement site has been discussed briefly in earlier chapters. In some cases,
as we have seen, it is easy to assign debris to a particular activity or craft,
while in other cases it may be very difficult. And even if the activity can be
determined it will rarely, if ever, be directly apparent whether it was carried
out by a woman or a man. All but the most sceptical of archaeologists
would agree that the regular association of specific tools with one or other
sex in burials suggests that the relevant activity was carried out by people
of that sex. The discovery of the same tools in a particular area of a
settlement site would probably indicate that people of that sex also used
that particular space. In the later prehistoric period we may also find
literary references to specific activities. Unfortunately, in Britain at least,
there are comparatively few known Iron Age burials, and those there
are do not include craft tools among the grave goods; apart from a few
documentary references which will be discussed later, we have little direct
evidence for gender roles. The pioneering archaeological study by the late
David Clarke of the Iron Age settlement at Glastonbury, Somerset, is of
particular relevance, even though many of his interpretations are very
controversial: he gives detailed consideration to the probable use of space,
based on the deposition of artefacts, and goes on to discuss the implications
for the respective roles of women and men.
Clarke's study of the settlement at Glastonbury is based on a reanalysis
of the results of excavations carried out in the first decade of this century. 2
The exceptionally precise recording of the position of each object found
during the excavations allowed him to study the relationship between the
distribution of each category of artefact and the buildings on a large village
site of around the second to first centuries BC. Because the site was located
in very marshy ground in the Somerset Levels, the preservation of wood
and other organic materials was unusually good, so a particularly wide
range of artefacts was available for study._
1 43
Women in Prehistory
Clarke suggests that the site was made up of a number of clusters or
units of buildings, each of which comprised a similar pattern of different
building types. Each cluster consisted of two main houses, a minor house
and a variety of ancillary structures such as workshops, stables, bakehouses and granaries. The attribution of these building types to different
functions is based on the occurrence within them of artefacts which would
have been used there. The suggested use of the major and minor houses is
of particular interest. Artefacts found in the major houses, which were
substantially built timber structures, included horse- and chariot-gear and
weaponry, tools for various activities, needles and combs, and sherds of
pottery, a high proportion of which were decorated fine wares. The minor
houses, by contrast, were somewhat smaller and set in the opposite side of
the compound. No weapons, metalworking evidence or workshop tools
were found in them, but there was evidence of spinning, weaving. fur- and
leather-working and grinding corn. There were also beads and bracelets,
and bronze tweezers. A higher proportion of the pottery in the minor houses
was undecorated. Clarke makes the assumption, without further discussion,
that the artefacts missing from these minor houses are male-associated,
while those present are female-associated. While the attribution of some of
the artefacts is justified on the grounds of associations elsewhere with
burials of the respective sexes, he suggests that the basis of distinction
between the types of house is that the major houses were male-owned or
/
Minor house
Sty or kennel
...
Ancillary hu~r-
·.
· · . ·.··•
• : .•
/''rf;,/,·•·..
/
v"o··
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storehouse ,, ,, ,
4 3 Schematic
plan of the
presumed function
of various
elements of the
settlement clusters
at the Tron Age site
of Clastonhury,
Somerset,
according to
Clarke, 1972.
144
\
\
/0 '/
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•
•
/.
\
/
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>
·.
1/·.
.....
.
o~Baking
.
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·
hut
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.
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.
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.·
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Major house
\\'orkshoo
\\'aggm
stancl'
d\'orktloors
The Celtic Iron Age
predominantly used by men, though women were sometimes present in
them, while the minor ones were the 'especial centres of female residence'.
The implied assumption, then, is that the activities listed above were
women's tasks. The presence of harnesses is explained as evidence that
women were responsible for the production and maintenance of all leather
gear, rather than the alternative possibility (assuming Clarke's rigid separation of the houses on sex grounds is correct) that the harness gear might
be evidence that women rode or drove horses!
A category of buildings which Clarke calls 'ancillary huts' is also characterised by female-associated artefacts, such as beads, spindle whorls and
bone combs, while artefacts which he defines as male are rarely found in
them. Flint artefacts are more common in these structures than elsewhere
on the site. The location and nature of these artefacts led Clarke to suggest
that the huts might have served as animal pens, storage or milking parlours,
used by women, though the evidence for this seems to be far from conclusive. 'Workshops' are distinguished by the presence of an assortment of tools
and unfinished wooden articles turned on a lathe, and 'an absence of a
significant level of female artefacts'. The crafts represented in these huts
are therefore assumed to have been carried out by men.
Clarke thus made a number of unfounded assumptions about which
artefacts were associated with which sex, and gave a great deal of weight
to the absence of certain artefacts, although there may have been many
other social reasons for this. For example, would anyone be likely to wear,
and lose, their best beads while engaged in a manual craft activity? Other
problems relate to the location of artefacts on the site. The buildings are
divided into a number of chronological phases, and the use of a particular
area does not remain constant throughout. It is not always certain to which
phase, and therefore to which type of building, a particular artefact belongs,
though this relationship is crucial to Clarke's argument. Other authors
have pointed out specific problems in this connection. It has been noted,
for instance, 3 that although some of Clarke's categories of structure type
fit the evidence well, others do not. For example, only one of the 'baking
huts' had an oven, and one had several hearths while others had none.
Despite new work at Glastonbury, the current excavators, Bryony and
John Coles, deny that any clear gender differences in the use of particular structures are apparent, or that the society was necessarily maledominated.
Although we may question Clarke's actual interpretations, his methods
and the detailed way in which he studied the data must point the way to
future studies of gender roles on settlement sites. His work has stimulated
other archaeologists to think about this issue, in relation both to Glastonbury and to other sites. A number of other studies have attempted to use
145
The CeWc Iron Age
eaten, where various craft activities such as leather working were carried
out, and where bone, metal and stone tools were made and maintained.
These activities, she suggests, may have been male-associated, though the
huts also contain evidence for 'those [activities] more often associated
with females (notably weaving)'. The other main category of house was
somewhat smaller, and was mainly used for food storage and preparation,
'which were probably the major tasks for the females'. Each site comprises
a number of units, each made up of one or two large residential structures,
one or two of the smaller houses and sometimes a special weaving hut.
The recurring evidence that different tasks were performed in different
areas within settlement sites shows that it is possible to look at social and
gender role patterns on these and probably other sites, though the method
has not yet reached its full potential. Nevertheless, the studies so far carried
out do, for the first time, put forward models which interpret these patterns
and suggest the roles played by women in the later prehistoric period in
southern Britain.
Decoration on Hallstatt pottery and bronze vessels
Turning to another part of Europe, and a quite different type of archaeological evidence, we will now look at depictions of women on pottery and
bronze vessels from the earliest phase of the European Iron Age, known as
the Hallstatt period. Scenes of women engaged in everyday tasks are
comparatively rare in prehistoric art, but a notable exception is a series of
delightful designs engraved on pottery from Sopron in north-west Hungary,
and probably made in the sixth century BC (Fig. 45). 6 The pottery was
probably funerary ware, made especially to contain cremated human ashes,
and the pots themselves are unique in the detail and clarity of their
decoration, though other vessels from the surrounding area fall within the
same general tradition.
The figures which seem to be women are wearing flared skirts and appear
to have curls or ringlets in their hair - or are possibly wearing earrings while most or all of the men have long trousers. The women are engaged
in weaving and spinning, and one is dancing or praying. A figure which
may be a woman is playing a lyre, and another figure often taken to be
female is shown riding an apparently rather too small horse. The men, by
contrast, are shown also riding horses, herding or_chasing animals and
leading horse-drawn wagons. Figures are also seen in pairs: two women,
two men, and a woman and a man. These couples have been interpreted
as fighting, though they may just as easily be dancing. Even in these
seemingly clear representations, however, the identification of the sex of
individuals is not entirely straightforward. Are the triangular forms really
147
Women in Prehistory
dresses, or rather some form of cloak? Some of the figures are wearing a
garment represented by a wide-based triangle, while others have a narrowbased triangular one, and some scholars have argued that this may in fact
be the distinction between women and men. Some of'the figures have a
little 'beak' protruding from the front of their face: is this supposed to
represent the nose, or a beard? If it is the latter, the figure with a large
triangular body riding a horse would be a man rather than a woman.
However, the clearest distinction in the figures is between those wearing
trousers and those wearing skirts. But we cannot assume that at this early
date this traditional Western distinction necessarily applied, and a number
of scholars have questioned this, presumably because they were unhappy
about the idea of women engaged in the various activities described. There
is ample documentary evidence that later in the Iron Age, at least, Celtic
men did indeed wear trousers (sec below), though the provenance of these
finds may be outside the geographic limits of true Celtic culture. Moreover.
45 Designs incised on pots from Sopron. Hungary, showing women engaged in various
activities: a. spinning; b. weaving on an upright loom: c. playing the lyre: d. dancing:
e. riding on horseback; f-h. women and men fighting or dancing? From Piggott. r 96 s.
The Celtic Iron Age
that do appear are usually waiting on men. A belt-plate from northern
Italy shows a woman pouring out wine from an Etruscan beaked flagon
for a man reclining on a couch in Etruscan fashion, and a similar scene
appears on a situla from Bologna. A belt-fitting from Brezje in Yugoslavia,
however, shows women sitting on chairs, with men kneeling before them.
A scene interpreted as a funeral procession, on a situla from Certosa in
Italy, depicts both women and men laden with various objects, the women
with large vessels and other goods on their heads.
Literary sources
In the discussion of European prehistory from the Old Stone Age to the
Bronze Age the evidence was purely archaeological, but for the Iron Age
we have an additional source - the written testimony of Greeks and Romans
who described the people and events to the north of their own lands. Some
of these writers, like the Greek historian and geographer Herodotus, were
interested in documenting the lives of all the 'barbarians', which to the
Greeks meant all the non-Greek speaking peoples known at the time. For
an author like Julius Caesar, on the other hand, descriptions of the lifestyles
of the Gallic tribes, the Germans and the Britons, were incidental to his
accounts of his battles against them. But we must appreciate that, just as
in modern histories and ethnographies, what these authors include and
what they leave out of their texts reflects as much on their own society and
its interests as those of the society on which they are commenting.
In all these accounts, references to women, though fairly few and far
between, are probably more numerous than has generally been acknowledged by ancient historians and archaeologists. 8 However, the number of
authors who say much about women in Iron Age Europe is quite small,
and includes the Romans Caesar and Tacitus and the Greek Dio Cassius.
Some authors make only one or two comments of any relevance to this
discussion. Nor must we forget that these authorities undoubtedly drew
upon the accounts of other writers and travellers whose own work is no
longer extant.
The subjects covered in these literary sources are varied. There are
numerous references to the role played by women in war, which reflect
not so much the European or Celtic attitudes to war but rather those of the
Romans, and particularly the context in which the Romans, in attempting
to conquer their territory, chose to encounter them. We also find a number
of important references to social organisation, marriage and descent
patterns. And, thirdly, a number of passages deal with the everyday lives
of women in various parts of Europe. Several statements suggest that
women were responsible for some religious functions such as making
151
Women in Prehistory
prophecies, while others attest their role as healers. Other brief references
mention the sexual division of labour in daily tasks.
Archaeologists have often been reluctant to place too much reliance or
belief in these literary sources. 9 Few of the authors wo'uld have had firsthand knowledge of the people or customs they were describing. Quite
clearly, too, habits which seemed curious to the narrator are liable to have
become exaggerated in the telling, especially as many of the authors were
deliberately setting out to make the Celts seem as 'uncivilised' or 'barbarous'
as possible. Some authors almost certainly drew upon the same original
sources for their information, and will therefore have repeated the same
stories. However, in the case of many customs enough independent versions
exist to make it unlikely that they could have been a Roman or Greek
invention. Furthermore, although much of the behaviour seemed exotic
and curious to the classical authors, most has close parallels with patterns
found in present-day traditional societies described by anthropologists.
Traditional archaeological theory holds that social patterns, such as those
relating to marriage restrictions, for example, are not capable of being
tested against archaeological data. Therefore, either documentary accounts
have to be taken at face value or this rich source of evidence has to be
completely ignored, which is what many archaeologists have done. Current
archaeological theoretical method, on the other hand, is ideally suited to
testing ideas or information put forward by classical authors, and as far as
possible this is how the various categories of information relating to
women's lives will be treated here.
A further question concerns how far some of the statements about
women, and indeed other matters, apply solely to the part of Europe under
discussion, or whether they were also relevant to other areas. Sometimes
an author specifically refers to one tribe or group, and it may be that he is
picking out idiosyncracies of these individual groups. In other cases the
customs of one population probably reflect those practised over a wider
area: archaeological evidence shows that there was a great deal of unity
in Europe at this time. The classical author himself may not have been
clear about this, but even if he was, a custom which was widespread will
be of more interest to us. The timespan during which a custom prevailed
may also be uncertain. Some authors based their work on earlier information, which may or may not have still been correct at the time of writing.
But it would also interest us to know how far back in time a particular
tradition went.
Another rich source of information about prehistoric Europe is the Irish
sagas, the most important of which is the Cattle Raid of CiJ.ailngeor Tciin Bo
Ciiailnge (often abbreviated simply as the Tliin). Like the early medieval
Welsh sources, for example the Mabi,w[Jion.and Continental sources of the
152
The Celtic Iron Age
same period, these were written down around the ninth to twelfth centuries
AD but are thought to embody elements based on life in the Roman and
indeed pre-Roman Iron Age. This tradition, however, is seen through the
eyes of the early medieval Christian storytellers, and the interpretation
of the pagan tribal society depicted is therefore beset with problems.
So what do the classical sources tell us about women in Iron Age Europe?
Firstly, they give descriptions of their appearance and dress. Women are
described as being tall and strong. 'Gallic women are not only equal to
their husbands in stature, but they rival them in strength [or courage] as
well.' 10 'In a fight [a man may] call in his wife, stronger by far than he,
with flashing eyes; most of all when she swells her neck and gnashes her
teeth and poising her huge white arms begins to rain blows mingled with
kicks like shots discharged from the twisted cord of a catapult.' 1 1 Even if
these descriptions need to be taken with a pinch of salt, they must surely
reflect a significant contrast between Roman women and those of northwest Europe in the Iron Age. Archaeological evidence suggests that in the
Iron Age the difference between the heights of women and men was similar
to that today, though the data available is limited. For example, where
statistics have been produced, as at Danebury, an Iron Age hillfort in
Hampshire, fifteen men were between I 5 7 and I 7 5 cm tall (5 ft 2 in-5 ft
9 in), while seven women were between I 50 and 160 cm (4 ft I I in and
5 ft 3 in). 12 Another, larger, sample, from the early La Tene phase (c.500400 BC) in the Champagne area of northern France, gives similar figures,
suggesting that men were on average 16 5 cm ( 5 ft 5 in) tall while women
were 15 5 cm (5 ft 1 in). 13 These figures compare with the average h~ights
of present-day British men and women of 17 4 cm (5 ft 8½in) and 162 cm
(5 ft 3½in) respectively. 14 By modern standards, therefore, these Celts were
not particularly tall; there was perhaps marginally less difference between
the heights of women and men than today, though scarcely enough to
justify the classical author's comments objectively.
It seems that Celtic women, like their men, typically had long fair hair,
which they wore either plaited or curled. They wore long tunics, held in
place with a brooch, while Iron Age men are represented in classical
literature and art wearing trousers, perhaps for the first time in history.
Over the tunic a woollen, tartan-like cloak could be worn, a garment
frequently mentioned with admiration in the classical literature. Archaeological evidence supports the literature in attesting a wide range of jewellery, including necklaces, brooches and bracelets. 15
A few classical references to Iron Age Europe speak of daily tasks and
everyday life, and a few of these mention which tasks are performed by
women and which by men. These confirm the picture of gender roles
suggested in earlier chapters.
153
Women in Prehistory
~
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'_t:. '"•'w c:::3"
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48 The jewellery worn by a rich Iron Age woman of the Arras culture, from the
'Queen's Barrow', East Yorkshire, including a pendant of bronze. sandstone and coral.
a brooch of bronze and iron with coral inlay, a bronze bracelet, a finger-ring, blue and
white glass beads, and a bronze nail-cleaner(?) (various scales). After Stead, 1979.
Strabo, 16 a geographer writing under the emperor Tiberius in about
AD 20, and the author of a lengthy account of much of the then known
world, makes the significant comment that feminine roles in Gaul 'in
common with many barbarian peoples' were the reverse of those in Rome.
It is unfortunately not really clear what sort of roles he means. He may be
thinking of agricultural tasks, or perhaps implying that specific crafts were
practised by women rather than men. Nevertheless it brought. even to
the Romans, the notion that gender roles are not universal or 'natural'
throughout the world, or through time.
The Germania of Tacitus is one of the most informative sources on many
aspects of life in late Iron Age Europe, and what it tells us about women
adds considerably to the knowledge we can gain from archaeology. Tacitus
was a Roman author, writing in the AD 90s. At this time Britain, Gaul
(France) and much of Europe had already been incorporated into the
Roman Empire, but Germany, to the east of the river Rhine, had not. and
154
The Celtic Iron Age
was to remain independent throughout the Roman period. The Germania
is an account of the character, customs and geography of the people of this
area. Tacitus' report on everyday tasks contrasts the easy life of men with
the onerous and time~consuming duties of women:
... [men] when not engaged in warfare, spend a certain amount of time hunting,
but more in idleness thinking of nothing else but sleeping and eating .... The care
of house, home and fields is left to the women, old men and weaklings of the family.
(Germania. I 5)
Caesar, in his famous history of his invasion of Gaul in the 50s
land use amongst the same peoples:
BC,
mentions
... the Germans ... men and women bathe together in rivers ... no one possesses
a definite portion of land. Chiefs allot land to clans and groups of people living
together ... and in the following year compel them to move to another piece of
land. (De Bello Gallico,VI. 21)
These descriptions are very reminiscent of horticultural societies, such
as those in New Guinea, Africa or South America, where women are wholly
or mainly responsible for crop-growing and domestic chores, while the men
hunt or, as in this description, sit around doing very little! The women
produce the vast bulk of the food, and also many of the items which can
be exchanged with other people either within or outside the society. As a
result. they have considerably more prestige and status, both within the
family and outside, than in societies where men are the chief providers.
This higher status of women seems to be implied by most of Tacitus' other
comments. It is also typical of many horticultural societies that land is not
deemed to be owned by any individual, but rather, as is suggested here, by
the clan, lineage or tribe as a whole. The likelihood that statements such
as these are true must add to our confidence that other comments by Caesar
and Tacitus, such as those about gender roles, are also valid.
Tacitus also describes the peoples surrounding the main group of Germanic tribes. He concentrates on the aspects of their culture which differ
from those of the other Germans, and makes important references to the
women of two tribes, the Sitones and the Penni. The Sitones seem to have
lived approximately in the area that is now Lithuania, perhaps on the Baltic
coast or in Finland. Tacitus says of them:
... [the Sitones] resemble lthe Suionesj in all respects but one - woman is the ruling
sex. (Germania,45)
Much literary criticism 17 tends to dismiss this statement as fable, while
other scholars see it as fitting into Engels' model of matriarchy as the most
primitive form of society, and have argued that the Sitones must have been
a last surviving remnant. Tacitus' subsequent comment, 'that is a measure
155
Women in Prehistory
of their decline, I will not say below freedom, but even below decent slavery',
mirrors general Roman attitudes to women, and clearly implies how much
he disapproves and derides the idea. While it is certainly true that his
account of the Sitones may easily be unreliable, since 'these people lived as
far from his first-hand or even second-hand experience as any society
he describes, the statement does follow on from a reasonably accurate
description of how amber is formed and collected around the Baltic Sea.
But Tacitus' view and the interpretations put on his statement by the more
recent critics are also typical of almost all early ethnographic writing in
that they assume either that women's status will be lower than men's, or
where the evidence for the higher status of women seems undeniable, that
the society is in some way anomalous or peripheral.
The Penni, who also lived somewhere in north-east Europe, perhaps on
the eastern shores of the Baltic,
... are astonishingly savage and disgustingly poor. They have no proper weapons,
no horses, no homes. They eat wild herbs .... The women support themselves by
hunting, exactly like the men .... Yet they count their lot happier than that of
others who groan over field labour. (Germania, 46)
The Penni sound like a classic hunter-gatherer society. As we saw in
Chapter 1, in most surviving hunter-gatherer societies women mainly
gather plant food or are involved in processing animal products, as in Arctic
regions where little plant food is available. This may also have been the
case here. However. there are a few anthropologically attested examples
where women hunt alongside the men, such as the Agta of the Philippines. 18
A second hunter-gatherer group is the Scrithifinni, who are probably to
be identified with the later Lapps. They are mentioned in the sixth century
19
AD by Procopius in his History of the Gothic War.
He says that the
Scrithifinni 'neither till the land themselves. nor do their women work it
for them, but the women regularly join the men in hunting, which is their
only pursuit.'
Although the descriptions of societies such as the Penni and the Scrithifinni are often dismissed as the product of classical imagination and as
mythological inversions of Roman values. it seems just as plausible that they
were hunter-gatherers, since archaeological evidence shows that huntergatherer societies continued to exist in northern Scandinavia well into
this period. There does not therefore seem any good reason to doubt the
suggestion that women hunted, and shared other tasks equally with men.
The Celtic Iron Age
Prophets and priestesses
Both Tacitus and Caesar mention that among the Germans women acted
as prophets. Caesar 20 tells us that it was apparently customary that the
matres familiae, the senior women of the household (more usually. but
perhaps rather negatively, translated as 'matrons') drew lots and used other
sorts of divination to decide whether it was advisable to engage in battle.
Tacitus reinforces this idea:
They believe that there resides in women an element of holiness and a gift of
prophecy; and so they do not scorn to ask advice or lightly disregard their replies ....
Veleda [was] long honoured by many Germans as a divinity; and even earlier they
showed similar reverence for Aurinia and a number of others - a reverence
untainted by servile flattery or any pretence of turning women into goddesses.
(Germania. 8)
Veleda was clearly a force in politics. and represented her tribe in political
arbitrations. 21
The best known of the Celtic religious leaders are undoubtedly the Druids,
mentioned by several of the classical authors as the priests, teachers and
judges of the community. It has been argued that they may have included
women. 22 The women described by Tacitus 23 as 'dressed in black with hair
dishevelled waving firebrands' on Anglesey, when the Roman governor
Suetonius Paulin us attempted to attack the island in AD 6 I, were clearly
in league with the Druidic cult though there is no suggestion that these
women were themselves Druids. Other references also hint that women
were involved in activities similar to those of the Druids. though not
described as such. Late Roman authors are more specific, and refer to a
class of women known as dryades. a word closely related to Druids. Vopiscus,
writing at the end of the fourth century AD but not regarded as a particularly
trustworthy source, twice refers to these women in the role of prophetess.
In the Irish saga the Tciin. a woman named Fedelm is credited with
prophetic powers, and other early Irish sagas speak of druidesses and
prophetesses. 24 Both these and the late Roman sources may lead us to
suggest, with caution, that the origins of this female role may go back
several centuries earlier into the prehistoric period, and be one of the
roots of an overall higher status and greater power (though by no means
domination) enjoyed by women in the Celtic world.
Descent and marriage patterns
The marriage patterns of the Celts and the way they viewed descent and
inheritance seem to have had the same fascination for the classical world
as variations in these practices have had for eighteenth and nineteenthcentury explorers and more recent anthropologists. Although only a few of
157
Women in Prehistory
these classical references explicitly mention the status of women, numerous
anthropological studies have shown a close correlation between descent
patterns and their situation. In particular, in societies where descent is
reckoned through the mother (matrilineal), womeh are respected and
valued more highly and their status is rriuch greater than in societies
where descent is reckoned through the father (patrilineal). However, the
anthropological evidence of present-day societies suggests that even where
matrilineal descent is the rule, men invariably act as leaders and have
political power.
From the classical sources it seems that there were very significant
differences in marriage and descent patterns between one part of Europe
and another. Tacitus, in Germania, suggests that the Iron Age people of
Germany were mainly monogamous and marriages patrilocal, with the
wife moving to her husband's home:
[The people of Germany have] ... one wife apiece - all of them except a very few
who take more than one not to satisfy their desires, but because their exalted rank
brings many pressing offers of matrimonial alliances. The dowry is brought by
husband to wife ... gifts [such as] oxen, a horse and bridle, or a shield, spear and
sword. . . . She in her turn brings a present of arms to her husband .... The woman
must not think that she is excluded from aspirations to manly virtues or exempt
from the hazards of warfare .... She enters her husband's home to be the partner
of his toils and perils. that both in peace and war she is to share his sufferings and
adventures ....
Clandestine love-letters are unknown to men and women alike. Adultery is
extremely rare ....
Girls too are not hurried into marriage. As old and full-grown as the men they
match their mates in age and strength .... The sons of sisters are as highly honoured
by their uncles as by their own fathers. Some tribes even consider the former tie
the closer and more sacred of the two. However a man's heirs are his own children.
(Germania, 18-20).
Apart from this last statement, the implications are that descent is reckoned
matrilineally, though residence is patrilocal - 'she enters her husband's
home' - or more likely what is described in anthropological literature as
avunculocal, where a young man moves to his mother's brother's residence
when he is old enough to leave home, and his wife then moves to live with
him. This is one of the few possible arrangements whereby matrilineal
descent and the wife moving to the husband's residence can be combined.
Many other references support this suggestion. For examply, Livy25 records
that Ambigatus, the ruler of the Bituriges, a Gallic tribe, sent two of his
sister's sons to lead emigrations to find more land in the late fourth century
BC. Thus a man's children are considered to belong to their mother's descent
group, and his own descendants will be his sister's children. It is also typical
of non-patrilineal systems that women marry men of about their own age.-
The Celtic Iron Age
as suggested here, whereas in patrilineal systems it is common for young
girls to be married to much older men. This pattern of descent is quite
common in many horticultural societies, and is usually linked with relatively high status for women. However, despite this, it is not unknown for
material possessions to be inherited from father to son or children, as is
said to be the case in Iron Age Germany, though other property or rights,
such as land rights or political rights, would probably follow the matrilineage, a pattern sometimes known as 'double-descent'.
Burials in a late Hallstatt cemetery at Miihlacker in north Wiirttemberg
have been claimed to provide evidence for matrilineal descent. Although
the cemetery dates from several centuries before Tacitus' description, it is
geographically within the area of which he speaks. 26 There is a clear
contrast in dress between girls and women, which Ludwig Pauli interprets
as a distinction between unmarried and married women. The central or
primary burials under the mounds or tumuli in the cemetery were those
of married women. In one case a woman was accompanied by the bodies
presumably of her husband and unmarried children. It seems, then, that
on the death of a married daughter, a new mound was built, in which all
the dead members of the next generation were buried. From this Pauli
concludes that the people using this cemetery practised matrilineal descent.
The Gauls, on the other hand, according to the documentary sources,
seem to have had a different pattern of inheritance, but one which also
implies that women had high status, particularly with respect to the
interesting and balanced dowry system:
When a man marries he contributes from his own property an amount calculated
to match whatever he has received from his wife as dowry. A joint account is kept
of all this property, and the profits from it are set aside. Whichever of the two
outlives the other gets both shares, together with the profits that have accumulated
over the years. Husbands have power of life and death over their wives and
children .... (Caesar, De Bello Gallico,VI. 19)
A similar system of joint ownership of property is implied in the Tciin.
Queen Medb and her consort Ailill have quarrelled, and all their possessions
are brought before them so that they may determine who owned what.
Among other things Medb owned a fine ram, a splendid horse and bulls.
She had bestowed a chariot on Ailill as part of her bride-price, worth
twenty-one female slaves. The implication is that in the first centuries AD,
in Ireland, at least, high-ranking women could own possessions equal to
men's, though the Tciin also makes it clear that social stratification was a
very important feature of early Irish society: that there were female, as well
as male, slaves, and that precious possessions were valued in terms of these
female slaves.
Returning to marriage customs, monogamy was the rule among the
159
Women in Prehistory
Gauls and Iberians, as it was in Germany,
Caesar says about Iron Age Britain:
27
but this contradicts
what
Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men,. especially brothers, and
between fathers and sons, but the offspring of these unions are counted as the
children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited first. (De Bello
Gallico.v, I 4)
Although this sentence is often dismissed as at least highly improbable
by most archaeologists, it is in fact a pattern well recognised by anthropologists. Polyandry. where one woman marries more than one man, is
much less common than polygyny (one man having several wives), but
the Toda of the Nilgiri hills of southern India practise this same form of
polyandry in which. when a woman marries, she marries all the man's
brothers as well. 28 In order to give a child a socially recognised father in
situations where the natural or genetic father is not necessarily known,
rules have to be made, such as that the eldest brother is always counted
as the 'father' - as is usually the rule amongst the Toda - or as suggested
by Caesar. that the father is the 'man with whom a particular woman
cohabited first'.
Is there any archaeological evidence to back up Caesar's assertion? Many
features of the archaeology of Britain on the one hand. and Continental
Europe on the other, provide contrasts which indicate that there were
significant differences between Iron Age society in the two areas. One
feature which has puzzled generations of archaeologists is the difference in
shape between houses in these two areas. In Britain nearly all Iron Age
houses are circular and extremely large, whereas on the Continent they
are usually small and rectangular. Many of the classic British round houses
have diameters of 10-15 metres and are over I oo square metres in floor
area. though smaller round houses of only about 3 3 square metres also
exist. 29 The rectangular houses on the Continent vary considerably in size.
though most seem to have a considerably smaller floor area than British
round houses. Examples from the Hallstatt phases include the Goldberg, a
hillfort in southern Germany, where the average house size was 8 x 8
metres, Aulnay-la-Planche, a small settlement site in France. 4 x 2 metres,
Kornwestheim 3 x 2.5 metres, and the Heunebcrg, a rich hillfort on the
Danube. I 2 x 5 metres. w
Why is there this significant difference in size between British and Continental Iron Age houses? Although archaeologists have frequently pointed
it out, few have attempted an explanation. However, as was discussed in
Chapter 3. when the Linear Pottery Culture was considered, the sizes and
shapes of houses are bound to reflect the social and domestic arrangements
of any society. This has been demonstrated in a number of anthropological
160
The Celtic Iron Age
studies. which have looked at different aspects of house form. Perhaps most
obviously, a polygamous extended family would usually be more suited to
a large round house (unless, as is often the case in Africa, all the wives or
husbands have sepanite dwellings, or each household's domestic space
comprises more than one building), just as a much smaller house would
be more appropriate to a monogamous couple with a small nuclear family.
An ethnographic survey of house shapes 31 also showed an interesting
difference in the types of house built by particular societies. Societies with
curvilinear house shapes tend to be polygamous. while those with rectilinear house shapes tend to be monogamous. A sample of 136 societies
from all over the world and representing all forms of agricultural subsistence
base was studied. There was of course a link between the shape of the
house and other architectural features such as. the building materials and
type of roof used, but these factors were not considered to be the primary
determinants of house shape. Other aspects, such as preferences in art
forms, were also considered, but the most significant correlation discovered
was between house shape and marriage patterns. Polyandrous societies
are comparatively rare, so the study actually compared polygynous societies
and house forms. As polygyny and polyandry have significant social and
economic differences. the house forms resulting from polygyny may be
different from those resulting from the polyandrous marriage pattern
described in Iron Age Britain. Nevertheless, the correlation between British
and Continental Iron Age houses and the contrasting marriage customs
suggested in the two areas would fit well with the anthropological patterning.
In recent years several articles have pointed out that the dichotomy
between Continental and British houses is not in fact as great as was
formerly thought. Regional variations and exceptions have been found in
both areas. 32 The contrast which was noted both in the classical sources
and in the earlier archaeological studies was in fact between inland Iron
Age Britain, as described by Caesar, and central Europe, to which Tacitus
was referring. However, the fact that round houses are also found in coastal
mainland Europe merely opens up a discussion as to whether a social or
political boundary existed at the English Channel or within Continental
Europe: differences in marriage patterns could accompany this boundary,
and need not invalidate the argument put forward in the previous
paragraph, that Caesar' s claim that the Iron Age Britons were polyandrous
is quite likely to have been true, and that this explains the differences in
house form between the two areas. Nor is our contention upset by the
possibility that both our classical sources and the archaeological dichotomy
may be gross generalisations, and that there were local or individual
exceptions to both the house shape and the marriage pattern rules.
161
Women in Prehistory
The description of the British Celts as polygamous has often been dismissed on various grounds: for instance, that it cannot be substantiated
archaeologically: that Caesar could not have known, or that Caesar is
merely repeating a rumour; or, worse still, that he 'was indulging in the
literary device of imitation and repeating all the possible bad or 'un-Roman'
practices attributed to the 'barbarians'. It has even been dismissed as 'a
bad rumour' 3 3 because Herodotus 34 describes similar practices elsewhere.
But polygamy is very common throughout the world, and, as Tim Champion points out. 35 there is a limit to literary imitation. The custom is
therefore more likely to have been a geographically widespread phenomenon which struck the classical mind as unusual.
Another important question is whether marriages were arranged, and,
if so, by whom. How much say did the women, or even the couple. have
in the choice of partners? As in many societies around the world today and
in the past. we have substantial documentary evidence that in Iron Age
Europe marriage was used as a means of securing alliances between families
or tribes. The references are to ruling families, and invariably it is the
woman, usually a chief's sister. who is married into a neighbouring tribe.
How widely through the social spectrum marriages were arranged is not
clear, nor whether arranged marriages were the general rule. Nevertheless,
as we shall see, they did not prevent women from becoming leaders and
possessing considerable power.
Women in war
We probably know more about the military techniques of the Celts than
any other aspect of their lives. This is not surprising, since it was in battle
that the Romans. from whom most of our written sources stem. most
frequently came face to face with the native populations of north-west
Europe. Archaeological evidence shows that dense populations were living
in settlements predominantly devoted to farming activities, accompanied
by craft industries, and were engaging in exchange with other settlements
throughout Europe. There is little evidence to suggest that warfare or
hostilities played a significant role in everyday life during most of the Iron
Age period. The bias in the classical sources is without doubt a reflection
of the nature of Roman intervention in north-west Europe. necessitating
defensive action on the part of the native populations and providing the
context for the descriptions and discussions of most of the classical writers
concerned with the area.
Our information comes from a number of authors. Caesar, in particular,
writing in his De Hello Gnllico, knew more about this aspect of his enemy
than any other, and Tacitus in his Gernumia and Amwles also provides us
The Celtic Iron Age
with informative insights. Women, it seems, were nearly always present
on the battlefield, though in most cases probably not actually fighting; they
usually watched from the sidelines, shouting encouragement, rather like a
crowd at a sports match today. But they did sometimes get injured or killed,
or captured by the enemy, either as bystanders or perhaps because they
were playing a rather greater role:
Close by them too, are their nearest and dearest, so that they can hear the shrieks
of their womenfolk, and the wailing of their children. These are the witnesses
whom each man reverences most highly, whose praise he most desires. lt is to
their mothers that they go to have their wounds treated, and the women are not
afraid to count and compare the gashes. They also carry supplies of food to the
combatants and encourage them .... It stands on record that armies wavering and
on the point of collapse have been rallied by the women. (Tacitus, Germania, 7
and 8)
A similar picture also emerges from a number of other sources, referring
to different parts of Europe. These also suggest that, as well as tending
the wounded and supplying provisions, women also bound and guarded
prisoners. 36
The presence of women on the battlefield is mentioned a number of times,
in connection with different tribes. For example, Caesar 37 says that 'behind
their line' the Gauls 'arranged the carts and waggons ... ; on this barrier
they placed their women'. Tacitus describes the tactics of Civilis, who with
the help of other Germanic tribes led the Batavians, a tribe living in the
Rhine delta, to a victory against the Romans in AD 69-70, thus:
In the rear, he placed his own mother and sisters, together with all the wives and
little children of his men, to incite them to victory or to shame them if they gave
way. And when the battle-cry of the men and the yells of the women rang out
from their line it was responded to by but a feeble cheer from the [Roman] legions
and cohorts. 38
The Thracians, too, 'were spurred on by the wailing of their mothers and
wives nearby', 39 and the Britons 'brought their wives with them to see the
victory, installing them in carts stationed at the edge of the battlefield' .40
This picture of all the population going off to battle together is in sharp
contrast to the modern, or even the Roman, pattern of fighting men going
alone to the battlefield, often far from home.
Iron Age women were not only observers and supporters in battle, but
may also sometimes have been involved in disputes as arbiters, or even in
actual fighting. Plutarch, a Greek philosopher writing in the early second
century AD, 41 described the influence Celtic women had as negotiators and
arbiters between armed forces in the period before the Celts had crossed
the Alps and settled in northern Italy, around 400 BC:
Women in Prehistory
[The Celtic women] arbitrated with such irreproachable fairness that a wondrous
friendship of all towards all was. brought about. As a result of this they continued
to consult with women in regard to war and peace.
When the Romans were about to invade Anglesey',' in AD 60, they faced
'black-robed women with dishevelled hair like Furies brandishing
torches ... , the Roman soldiers ... then urged each other, and were urged
by the general, not to fear a horde of fanatical women' .42 At the same time,
Suetonius Paulinus. the Roman general facing Boudica, tried to bolster his
men's morale with the information that in her army there were more
women than fighting men. This presumably reflects the Roman assumption
of male superiority in warfare, which was not subscribed to by the Celts,
who accepted that women could play a significant part in military affairs.
The women of the Ambrones, a Teutonic tribe, were also directly involved
in fighting. When the Roman general Marius was engaging in warfare
with the tribe in the late second century BC, the women. brandishing swords
and axes, met their own men as they retreated, as well as the pursuing
Romans, and attempted to slay both, the former as traitors, the latter as
foc.4 3 This docs, however, imply that they were not in the front line of
attack, but were certainly nearby and not unwilling to use force themselves.
On the other hand, further evidence suggests that it was not universal
practice throughout Iron Age Europe for women to take part in battles or
to be present on the battlefield. CaesarH says that the Suebi ordered their
wives and children and belongings to be placed in forests for safety. But
the fact that the women had to be ordered by the men to go into the forest
may imply that this was not normal practice in times of crisis.
Tribal chiefs and commanders in battle
As well as being present on the battlefield and actually taking part in
battles, a few Iron Age women are known to have been commanders and
tribal chiefs, though it is not clear whether it was exceptional or quite
common for women to hold these positions. By far the most famous of these
was Boudica (or more popularly. though incorrectly, Boadicea), who was
leader of the Iceni. a tribe which lived in East Anglia, and who led the
British in revolt against the Romans in AD 60. 4 s Her name is derived from
the Celtic word bouda, meaning victory. Boudica's exploits were recorded
by two classical historians, Tacitus, in his Annals of Imperial Rome,46 and
the Greek writer Dio Cassius, who wrote his History of Rome47 at the
beginning of the third century, over 150 years after Boudica's death; this
history must have been based on some more contemporary acount, now
lost. Neither of these sources is totally reliable, and the attributes. actions
and words ascribed to Boudica must be treated with caution: equally.
The Celtic Iron Age
battle has been estimated 50 at over 100,000,
of whom 80,000 may have
perished. After the defeat, according to Tacitus, Boudica felt obliged to take
her own life. Alternatively, according to Dio, she fell ill and died. Her death,
combined with the heavy losses suffered by the British, marked the end of
the rebellion, so it is clear that there was no other leader of similar stature
to take her place.
Although Boudica is the best-known female leader of the period, the
accounts of her exploits provide indirect evidence that she was not unique
among the Celts. It is common for Roman historians to include speeches
as though recorded verbatim. Particularly when made by enemies of the
Romans, such speeches clearly could not have been reported first-hand but
were literary devices invented and used by the historians. Their texts are
therefore usually dismissed as not to be taken literally. Nevertheless, they
must contain at least an element of the Romans' idea of the enemy's
position and thinking. In a speech before her final battle, Boudica is said
to have exhorted the troops with the words, 'We British are used to women
commanders in war' 51 and this is repeated by Tacitus in his Agricola.52
where he says that Britons 'make no distinction of sex in their appointment
of commanders'. It is important to appreciate that we know the names or
other details of very few leaders of either sex in Britain during the late Iron
Age, so the fact that few women are mentioned personally cannot be seen
as an indication that it was unusual for them to hold positions of power.
One of the key sources of names of late Iron Age tribal leaders comes from
inscriptions on some of the earliest coins. These inscriptions usually give
the name in abbreviated form, and the ending which would often indicate
the sex of the individual is unknown; conventional scholarship attributes
male names to these leaders, some of whom could in fact be women. Indeed,
a second female chief of a British tribe is mentioned by Tacitus. Named
Cartimandua, she ruled at about the same time as Boudica, in the late
53
AD 50s. She is described as queen of the Brigantes,
the huge tribe spread
over much of northern England. She must have been in power before AD 5 7,
reigned throughout the Boudican episode in the south of England and was
still leader of the Brigantes in AD 69, a rule of over twelve years. Twice
during this period, when she had problems with her anti-Roman consort,
Venutius, the Romans backed her, so they were obviously not opposed to
a female leader at all costs. The length of her reign and the huge area of
her kingdom must give justification to the claim that Cartimandua was in
her own right a much more powerful figure than Boudica.
Tacitus also 'quotes' a speech by another British leader, Calgacus, who
speaks of a woman leader of the Brigantes who had burned a Roman colony
and stormed a camp, at a date which probably would have been between
54
AD 71 and 83.
Cartimandua was certainly pro- rather than anti-Roman,
Women in Prehistory
and the incident can hardly have taken place before her time, as it is
unlikely that Rome would then have considered leaving the area as a client
kingdom. It has been argued that this is merely a confusion on Tacitus'
part between Cartimandua and the Brigantes and Bbudica and the Iceni,
and that he is in fact referring to the Boudican rebellion. 55 However, the
Brigantes were a large and divided tribe which the Romans found difficult
to control, and little is known about their detailed history in the third
quarter of the first century, so it is possible that another female leader and
separate incident are at issue.
The literary sources are supported by archaeological data which can be
interpreted as evidence that there were women of extremely high status,
possibly tribal rulers. In mainland Europe in the early Iron Age (sixth and
fifth centuries BC), and the early La Tene phase (fourth century) a small
number of extremely rich burials stand out. Funerary wagons, very rich
jewellery, imported goods from the Greek world and other artefacts which
can only be described as luxury items were buried with the dead person
beneath an often huge mound. In the earliest phase, known as Hallstatt D,
these burials are particularly rare. adding up to only about twenty of the
richest burials from a wide area of southern Germany and eastern France.
They are located near hilltop settlements in which imported goods have
also been found and which are interpreted as the former seats of these rich
dead. The relevance of these burials to the present argument is that several
of them are of women.
The richest, and most celebrated of these burials is that at Vix, on the
Saone, at the foot of the hilltop settlement of Mont Lassois. This burial was
probably that of a woman, though some doubt has been expressed over
the sex of the skeleton found· in the grave. Originally it was identified as
female, but some skeletons will always fall between the extremes of certain
measurements typical of each sex, for example in the hips and skull.
Unfortunately, the Vix burial is one such skeleton, and to add to the problem
it is poorly preserved. There has therefore been considerable debate as to
its sex. though the most recent studies argue that the body is indeed that
of a woman. 56 The grave goods found with the body, while also not
providing a clear-cut answer, favour a female interpretation. They include
the remains of a chariot and a number of unique artefacts, including a
huge Greek bronze vessel. or krater. 1 .64 metres high, which would have
been used for mixing wine. and a variety of personal ornaments. the most
notable of which is a gold tore. There were no weapons, though these are
often found in male graves of this period. This was originally taken as
confirmation of the sex of the body, but no objects were found which are
regularly associated with either sex among the Hallstatt D burials. If the
person was indeed female, what was her status or position? Most debate
168
The Celtic Iron Age
much earlier at Vix was also female, so 'in this Celtic society women were
not only respected but also able to retain their power'.
'Another rich grave of the same period, at the Hohmichele, a burial
mound near the Heuneberg, another important hilltop settlement of the
same period on the Danube, contained the body of a woman in the main
chamber, laid to rest on a chariot draped in textiles. Within the mound
were two other chambers, one with a male and female body lying side by
side, and the third with a male burial. 58 At Klein Aspergle, a third grave of
the same group, a woman was buried in a robe ornamented with gold, and
with a silver chain. Etruscan vessels and other imports. 59
These and other examples of very rich female burials show that at the
beginning of the Iron Age in central Europe rich women, presumably of
high standing, were buried with as much wealth as men. The Vix burial is
especially significant, as its wealth is so striking that one would expect the
deceased to have held power in her own right, rather than being honoured
only for her position as a male ruler's wife.
In the later phases of the European Iron Age, from around 400 BC, burial
rites changed, and the difference between women's and men's graves is
usually clear from the grave goods present. However, there are few cemeteries where the skeletal evidence has been analysed in sufficient depth to
be certain that the distinctive 'male' grave goods are never associated with
female skeletons, or vice versa, or whether any 'sumptuary goods' - symbols
of office or status - can be identified which could be used as evidence that
there were other women leaders like Boudica. However, there are other
Iron Age graves in Europe which may be those of important women. For
example, a group of three burials, dated between the fourth and second
century BC and excavated in the Wetwang cemetery in Yorkshire, England,
stand out from most of the other graves in the cemetery by the richness of
their grave goods. These included chariots. rarely found in European Iron
Age burials, and even where there are clusters of them, such as in east
Yorkshire, they are still exceptional among a mass of simpler graves. The
three graves formed a line, with the earliest burial. which was also the
richest. in the centre: the grave goods buried with the body included an
iron mirror, an iron and gold dress-pin and a unique bronze canister. All
three burials were covered by earth mounds, and the central one was the
largest, a feature which is often taken as an indication of wealth or status.
What is significant here is that this richest central burial was that of a
young adult woman, while those on either side contained the bodies of
men. 6 ° Could this have been the grave of another woman leader?
I
71
6 Conclusions
We have looked at a number of episodes in European prehistory, from the
advent of human populations, through the discovery of agriculture and
the social impact of bronze as a medium for display, to the classical world's
writings about the last prehistoric peoples of Europe before their conquest
by the Romans, and the inevitable social changes this conquest brought
about over much of Europe. Although I have followed the chronological
sequence of events, I have not attempted to give a continuous account of the
changing lives of women. I would rather draw an analogy with snapshots in
an album, which pick out episodes and events not always directly related:
each photograph tells a different story, yet they are stuck into the album
in the sequence in which they were taken: other equally significant episodes
have gone unrecorded. So I have picked out themes and developed them
as far as present evidence will allow; and, as in the photograph album, I
have ordered those chosen themes in chronological sequence. There are
undoubtedly many other topics which could have been pursued. I therefore
will not summarise or pretend to tell a coherent story: to do so would
require the study of far more evidence, in far more detail, than has been
possible here; indeed, coherence and comprehensiveness may not be possible at the present time, before specialists have considered and discussed
the evidence for the lives of women in their own particular periods and
areas of Europe. I hope, however, that I have shown that it is possible to
study women in prehistory, and some of the ways this may be done.
The relationship between the role of woman in economic production and
distribution and her social status has been a recurrent theme. It has been
argued that in the forager societies of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, plant
foods, gathered by women, would have provided the bulk of the diet. This
would have ensured that women and their work were highly valued
throughout society, particularly where this food was exchanged within the
society. This continued in the first days of horticulture in the early Neolithic,
when women discovered the secrets of crop growing, and tended and
harvested the new cereal crops. But with the increasing contribution of
male-tended herds of animals and the various secondary products they
supplied, and the introduction of the plough, men may have become
increasingly involved in farming and food production. The lessening of
women's role in food production, in itself. may have lowered her status
within the family. But clearly the story is not so simple. On the one hand,
change would not have been continuous or uniform throughout Europe:
Conclusions
we must expect patterns long abandoned in one area to have continued in
ap.other, and not all social changes will be felt in every area. Furthermore,
the equation between production and social status is not straightforward,
but in reality a very complex issue, which is difficult to determine from
archaeological evidence alone. Other factors must also be important. 1 Some
writers 2 have considered that of even greater significance than her actual
role in production is the extent to which a woman is able to give or
exchange goods outside the immediate family, which creates obligations to
her. This in turn seems to depend on the way the society is organised:
whether a woman is perceived to own any goods she produces, and whether
she herself takes them to the place of exchange and receives goods or
services in return. Thus, women who do a large proportion of work within
the family, producing food and other items, may not invariably be able to
acquire high status from it, especially if the produce is used entirely to
sustain the immediate family. On the other hand, if a woman plays no part
in production, and has no means of creating alliances and obligations, she
will certainly not be able to gain status within the society.
In pastoral agricultural communities of the Early Bronze Age. women
may have had little role in primary food production, and been regarded as
inferior by their men. From the Bronze Age onwards, women may always
have been considered 'second-class citizens', but the exact regard with
which societies viewed them may have varied from area to area and from
time to time; depending partly on their economic balance. We should not
expect a unilineal decline or improvement in the status of women.
In later societies particularly, a distinction must be drawn between the
lives of ordinary women and the evidence for a small number of wealthy
or 'high-class' women reaching individual positions of power, or taking on
the role of religious leaders. This may be true of Minoan Crete. and is
particularly problematic in the Iron Age, when we have evidence that
women such as Boudica did become rulers, but do not really know what
influence most women had within their families or villages.
But, although the social status of women has long been inferior to that
of men, it must also be remembered that the foraging societies of the
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic spanned an immense period, many hundred
times longer than the mere r 2,000 or so years from the Neolithic to the
present, and that many qf the world's people continued to be foragers long
after farming had been discovered in the Near East. So, throughout human
history, the great majority of women who have ever lived had far more
status than recently, and probably had equality with men.
I have here merely skimmed the surface of the possibilities of studying
the lives of women in prehistory. Many more themes, from various periods
and areas of Europe (not to mention the rest of the world), might be
1 73
Women in Prehistory
addressed using evidence already available. But there is even more scope
for fresh primary research: many times throughout my study my conclusions have been limited by the inadequacy of the data. For example,
new excavations could and, I am sure, will yield far' more evidence of the
range of plant foods consumed, and where ~ithin the settlements and how
they were processed. Tools need to be studied to find out precisely what
they were used for, and especially if they can be linked to grave goods we
may be able to assess directly which tasks women were engaged in. The
scope and potential of the information which could be derived from skeletal
material seems endless. Many innovative techniques and studies have been
discussed here which so far have only been applied to one or two sets of
data. These need to be applied far more widely.
In addition to considering the lives of women in prehistory, more traditional archaeological themes can be reviewed from a feminist perspective.
Although there have been a significant number of women archaeologists
over the past decades, we have all learnt and worked within male-dominated institutions, and have grown accustomed to considering topics such
as weapons, warfare and invasions from traditional male viewpoints of
victory, conquest and triumph. Yet many women (and men. too, of course)
turn to quite different thoughts and concerns when these subjects are
discussed in relation to our own world. What of the social cost to society
as a whole of war and battles in prehistory? Was warfare really glorified.
and as common in the Iron Age as some writers would have us believe? Or
was the greater premium rather placed on peace? Did racism exist between
people of different origins in the Bronze Age, or did people of different
religious beliefs live harmoniously side by side? These questions are not
easily answered from archaeological evidence alone, but within the context
of the current scope of archaeological enquiry they are perfectly valid: the
evidence which would justify the male colonial interpretations which are
habitually offered needs to be just as carefully garnered. rather than
assumed unthinkingly.
Throughout the book. I have tried to stress the problems of interpreting
the archaeological evidence for the prehistoric period. particularly when
addressing an issue such as the lives of women. We have seen that many
interpretations are possible for each topic which has been examined. In
many cases this depends on which class of evidence is stressed, but it
especially depends on the preferred interpretative framework of the individual author or archaeologist. Thus in the past many archaeologists have
written accounts of prehistoric men in Europe. ignoring. albeit unconsciously, the prehistoric women with whom they must have shared their
lives. But women did exist in prehistory, and can be made visible: this book
has shown that it is possible to write a prehistory of women.
174
Glossary
Absolute dating Dates which can be expressed
in calendar years, rather than merely as earlier
or later than another date (relative dating).
Agriculture The domestication and cultivation
of plants and animals.
Anthropology The study of the human species.
Social anthropology is the comparative study of
human societies and institutions, and patterns
of human social behaviour; in Britain it is
usually restricted in definition to present-day
and recent societies. but in North America also
includes past societies, and hence archaeology.
Physical anthropology studies the physical
development of the human species.
Archaeology The study of past societies from
their material remains.
Artefact An object made, modified or used by
humans.
Barrow A mound of earth or rubble covering
one or more burials.
Bipedalism The predominant use of two hind
legs for walking, rather than moving on all four
limbs.
Bronze Age The period of European prehistory
during which bronze, an alloy of copper and
tin, was the main inorganic material used for
making tools such as axes and weapons. It
broadly spans the period 2000 BC-700 BC.
Carbon 14 (C14 ) dating See radiocarbon dating.
Culture Traditionally used in archaeology to
describe a recurring assemblage of similar artefacts and sites. confined in time and space and
thought to represent a group of people who
considered themselves to be a social unit, or
society (q.v.). Whether such an assemblage can
be interpreted so easily has been the subject of
much recent debate. In anthropology the term
is used to describe those aspects of life, such
as behaviour patterns and modes of thought,
which are the product of human creation,
rather than of the natural world, and which are
transmitted through learning.
Descent patterns The rules or beliefs by which
a society recognises kin, birth and inheritance.·
Tn most societies this is perceived to be either
through the female (matrilineal) or the male
line (patrilineal), rather than through both
parents (bilateral). Matrilineal and patrilineal
descent patterns result in distinct descent
groups, people who share a common ancestor.
Deverel-Rimbury A group of burials and settlements of the Earlier Bronze Age in southern
England (c. r 500 BC-rooo BC), forming a fairly
complete assemblage and often described as a
culture (q.v.).
Ethnoarchaeology The examination
of the
material aspects of a particular, observed,
activity or practice, usually carried out by a
traditional society, where the relationship
between an activity and the material remains
which it leaves can be studied.
Ethnography The first-hand study and description of all aspects of a particular society.
Faience A blue glass-like substance
used
mainly around the eastern Mediterranean, but
also elsewhere in Europe, during the Early
Bronze Age period, for making beads and other
simple artefacts.
Forager See hunter-gatherer.
Gender The behaviour, roles and other aspects
of culture expected of. or usual to, a person of
a particular sex within the society in question.
In keeping with modern feminist and anthropological practice, a distinction is made between
gender and sex, which refers to the inborn and
physical distinctions between women and men.
Grave goods Objects placed in a grave with a
burial, and presumably associated in a significant way with the individual. or for the wellbeing of the individual in an after-life.
Hallstatt A cemetery and salt mines in Austria,
used as the type-site for the earlier phase of the
European Iron Age, c.700-475
BC.
Hillfort A defended hilltop settlement.
cipally of Iron Age date.
prin-
Hominid A member of the human and closely
related species Hominidae, including modern
humans, Homo sapiens, and earlier forms.
I
75
Women in Prehistory
Horticulture Used in anthropology to describe
plant cultivation using simple technology,
without the assistance of the plough, traction
animals or irrigation, and allowing the plots of
land to remain fallow for long periods to restore
soil fertility.
Hunter-gatherers or foragers People subsisting
without cultivating plants or keeping animals,
relying instead on collecting plant foods, insects.
eggs and small creatures and hunting animals
from the natural environment. This lifestyle was
universal in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic.
Inhumation Burial of a body without
ation.
crem-
Iron Age The final phase of European prehistory, when iron was the principal raw material
used for the manufacture of tools and weapons:
700 BC till the Roman conquest.
Linear A The written script of the Minoans,
which has not yet been deciphered by archaeologists.
Matriarchy A society in which women regularly dominate all aspects of life, hold power and
have authority over men (but see Chapter 2).
Matrilineal descent Descent pattern reckoned
through the female line only.
Matrilocal residence Post-marital
residence
arrangement, where the married couple live in
the woman's family home or village.
Mesolithic The Middle Stone Age, between the
Palaeolithic and the Neolithic in north-west
Europe, marked particularly by social and economic adaptations to the post-glacial forest
BC.
environment. c. I 3000-6000
Model A theoretical reconstruction
data or phenomena.
of a set of
Neolithic The New Stone Age, the period when
agriculture was first practised in Europe, from
c. 7000 BC in the Near East to a beginning in the
fourth millennium in north-west Europe and
ending with the advent of bronze technology
and the Bronze Age around 2000 BC: also
characterised by the earliest use of pottery and
ground stone tools, and a sedentary lifestyle.
Palaeobotany The study of plant remains from
archaeological or other early contexts.
Palaeolithic The Old Stone Age, the earliest
phase of human history, including the development of the species from the earliest use of
tools, and characterised
subsistence economy.
by a hunter-gatherer
Palaeopathology The study of early health and
disease from bones from archaeological and
other contexts.
Patriarchy A society in which men dominate
and hold most or all key positions of power.
Prehistory The period in the past before ,,vritten
records. In north-west Europe this is usually
taken as the period up to the Roman conquest,
but it varies from area to area, particularly
when other areas of the world are considered.
Radiocarbon dating An absolute or chronometric dating technique based on the measurement of rad-inactivity surviving in organic
materials: by far the most widely used absolute
dating method used in European prehistory.
Dates directly quoted from the analysis are
expressed as bp (before present), be, or ad, with a
standard deviation, expressed as ± years either
side of that date, e.g. 2300 ± 50 be. To express
these dates in calendar years they must be calibrated to allow for known, but unavoidable.
scientific errors: for the prehistoric period this
makes these absolute dates between roo and
moo years before the radiocarbon date. All
dates quoted in this book are correcteddates.
Role The duties and behaviour which a society
expects of an individual of a particular status.
Sedentism Settlement and economic pattern
based on living year-round in one location.
Settlement site A convenient term used to
describe any archaeological site where people
have lived, from a hunter-gatherer
camp to a
farmstead to a town.
Society A group of people distinguishable from
another group by their way of life, behaviour.
ideology and often geographical location.
Status The social position occupied by an individual in relation to other people within the
society. carrying with it a series of rights, duties
and behavioural expectations (roles).
Theoretical archaeology A recent trend within
archaeology where the emphasis is placed on
interpretation of the material remains. rather
than solely on their description and dating, and
on the construction and testii1g of theoretical
models (q. v.) of past societies.
Tumulus Burial mound. usually built of earth,
also known as a barrow.
Notes
Introduction
l
7 For a recent and light-hearted account of
anthropological fieldwork the reader is
recommended Barley, 1983; however,
although this is a very recent account. the
critical reader will not fail to notice the
almost total male bias of both the
observations and the interpretations made
by the author.
Archaeology and anthropology are by no
means unique in this. The position of
women and women's perspectives have
been discussed in almost every academic
field in recent years. For a comprehensive
account see Spender, r 9 8 r.
Chapter 1
The Search for Prehistoric Woman
Numerous examples from almost all
spheres of endeavour could be cited. and
have been brought to light by recent
research. For example, in literature and in
art many women, such as the playwright
Aphra Behn, had become virtually
forgotten. Others such as George Eliot only
achieved fame by writing under a male
pseudonym. See for example Spender.
1981: Spender, 1982.
2 Piggott, 1959, 14. Some archaeologists in
recent years, notably Ian Hodder, have
questioned how far this is true, and argue
that every human action is governed by
subconscious or learnt behaviour.
Messages transmitted within a social or
ethnic group in this way still seem very
different from the conscious, deliberate act
of writing.
8 The literature within the field of the
anthropology of women is now extensive:
references to specific works are made
throughout the present volume. Key texts
include, for example. Rosaldo and
Lamphere, 1974; Reiter, 1975; Martin and
Voorheis, r 9 7 5; Freid!, r 9 7 5: Dahlberg,
r98 r.
l
3 The processes which go to make up the
archaeological record are discussed in
detail in Schiffer, 1976.
4 This wider view of the potential of
archaeology was first put forward in
Britain by David Clarke and was dubbed
the 'new archaeology', and in the United
States by Lewis Binford; now the approach
is often termed theoretical archaeology.
5 Randsborg, r 9 84, is one of the very few
articles to discuss the topic of women in
prehistory and makes the same point,
concentrating on a brief review of the
Danish evidence.
6 For more discussion of the use and misuse
of anthropology by archaeologists, see
Hodder, 1982; Binford, r983.
9 See for example Binford, r983.
ro Spector. 1982; Conkey and Spector, 1984.
11 Goodall, r97r; Goodall, 1986; Fossey,
1983.
12 Examples of these sources include the Tciin
and the Mahinogion.
13 Ross, 1986, 124.
14 Brothwell, 1981; Manchester, 1983.
15 Merbs. 1983.
16 Dutour, 1986.
7 For example articles in Gilbert and Mielke,
1985.
r8 Wing and Brown, 1979, eh. 5; Sillen and
Kavanagh, 1982.
I
19 Wing and Brown, 1979, 76.
20 McHenry, 1968.
21 Molnar. 1971.
22 The classic article warning of such pitfalls
is Ucko, 1969.
23 Conkey and Spector, 1984, rr; Winters,
r 968, 206 quoting earlier accounts.
Winters himself acknowledges as one
possibility that 'some women were hunters
of one type of game or another'.
24 E.g. Shennan, 1975; see also Chapter 4.
25 Discussed, for example, by Binford 1972,
6off: Hodder, 1982, 128.
177
Women in Prehistory
26 Whiting and Ayres, UJ68.
26 Sahlins. 1972.
27 Ember, 1973.
27 Childe, 1951.
2
8 Krzywinski, Fjelldal and Soltvedt, r 9 8 3,
156.
The Earliest Communities
1
For more detail the reader is recommended
Wymer, 1982; Leakey, 1981: Denne!!.
1983; Gamble, 1986.
2
Zihlman, 198 r.
3 Slocum, 1975.
4 For example Tanner, 1981: Martin and
Voorheis, 1975.
5 Zihlman. 1981; Isaac and Crader, 1981.
6 Zihlman, 1978; the same arguments are
used by Friedl, I 975 and 1978, who
explains in more detail than here why
present-day foragers divide food collecting
tasks along gender lines.
7 Dennell, 1983, 55.
8 McGrew, 1981: Goodall. r986.
1 861.
?9 Morgan, 1877: Engels, 1884.
31 E.g. Leacock, 1978; Fluehr-Lobban, 1979;
Rohrlich-Leavitt, Sykes and Weatherford,
1975.
3 2 See for exam pie Friedl. 19 7 5.
3 3 There are numerous references to these
figurines, both in the feminist and the
scholarly archaeological literature. It is
important to distinguish between most of
these. For archaeological accounts see
Wymer, 1982, 246-7. 261-2: Champion
et al., 1984: Ucko and Rosenfeld. 1967:
Powell. 1966: Sandars, 1985.
34 Gamble, 1986.
3 5 Leakey, 1 9 8 r.
36 Ucko, 1962; Leko,
I
968.
37 Mellaart. r967.
9 Tanner and 'Zihlman, 1976.
38 Mellaart. 1975. 1r1-r9.
ro McGrew, r98 r, 47.
39 Ccko, 1962.
Lee, 1968.
40 Doumas, 1968; Renfrew, 1972.
12 Martin and Voorheis, 1975, r8r.
13 Rohrlich-Leavitt,
1975.
14 Goodale, 1 9 7 I.
\
3o Sanday, I 9 8 1, argues that females are
dominant in the mythology of those
societies where women have higher than
average status.
Chapter 2
II
28 Bachofen,
Sykes and Weatherford,
15 Estioko-Griffin and Bion Griffin.
1 98
r.
41 lJcko, 19(12: Ucko, 1968.
42 Leakey, 1981, 180.
43 Cf. Ucko,
1 968.
44 Sandars,
I<-)85, 69.
16 Goodale, 1971. 55.
45 Leacock, 1977, 24.
17 Clarke, 1952, 86: Clarke. 1948.
46 Ucko, 1962: Ucko. r 968, eh. r 6.
18 Clarke, 1952, )4, though the location of
the site does not agree with Obermaier,
I 925, fig IJ 6: Beltran, ll)82.
47 Gamble, IL)86.
19
The First Farmers
20 Pequart et al., 19:.p.
2
r Recent discussions on the origins of
1 Keeley and Toth, 1981.
agriculture include Mellaart, 1975: Be
Clarke, 1976.
22
2
Chapter 3
Gamble, 1984; Isaac, 1971.
3 Lee,
l
1 984.
2
24 Lumley, 1969.
2s
Harrold, 1980: Gamble,
975-
Jarman, 1<-)72:Bender. F)7S, 94ff.
3 Mellaart,
1 984,
108.
I 975,
.p-8.
4 Hillman, 1975; Moore, 1979, 54.
Notes
5 Martin and Voorheis, 1975: Friedl, r975:
Boserup, 1970.
6 Martin and Vomheis, 1975, eh. 8.
.B Sherratt. 1981, 280.
34 E.g. Boserup, r 9 70, 24 ff; Martin and
Voorheis, 1975.
7 Moore, 1979, 54.
8 Stanley, 1981.
35 Sherratt. 1983, roo.
36 Cf. for example Champion et al., 1984, r6o.
9 Cf. for example Mellaart, 19 7 5: Moore,
1979.
10 Flannery and Winter, 1976, discuss and
use this approach, including an attempt to
look for 'male' and 'female· work areas. in
a classic study of a prehistoric
Mesoamerican site. It is also the basis of
Janet Spector's task-differentiation
method, discussed in Chapter I.
11 Flannery. 1969, So.
12 Some archaeologists argue that sedentism
or population growth may have triggered
the transition to agriculture, rather than
the other way around; see Bender, 1978;
Binford, 1968.
3 7 This argument has been put forward in
relation to the development of megalithic
tombs in western Europe, and to the spread
of settlement onto poorer soils in the later
Neolithic, by Renfrew, 1973, and others.
38 The origins of social stratification, and its
relationship with the status and
subordination of women, are key questions
in both Marxist and feminist
anthropological literature: the balance of
importance of different contributing
factors is obviously complex, and a matter
of much debate, e.g. Engels. 1884; Sacks,
1974: Leacock, 1978, 255: Reiter, 1978.
Quinn, r977, provides a summary of
various views up to that date.
13 Mellaart, 1975. 44-7.
14 Stanley. 1981, 291-3.
T 5 Binford, I 9 7 2. argues the case that
population growth is closely linked to the
advent of agriculture and to sedentism.
Chapter 4
The Bronze Age
16 Also known by its German name
Linearbandkeramik,and formerly as the
Danubian Culture.
1
7 Sherratt.
l
1
9 8 r.
2
18 Milisauskas. 19 78, 7 r.
For a detailed discussion of the archaeology
of Bronze Age Europe, see Coles and
Harding, 1979.
Evans, 1921-4.
19 Whittle, 1985, 90.
3 General discussions of the Minoans include
Cadogan, 1976: Hood, 1971.
20 Milisauskas. r 978, 71.
2 r Whittle, 198 5, 88.
4 Thomas. 1973: Immewahr, 1983.
5 Evans, 192 T-4.
22 Ember, 1973: Whiting and Ayres. 1968.
6 Pomeroy. 1984.
23 Milisauskas, 1978, 99-105.
7 E.g. Willetts, r977, 78.
24 Soudsky, 1964.
8 Thomas. 1973.
9 Immewahr, 1983.
25 Divale, 1974.
26 Hodder, 1984.
27 Brown. 1970.
28 Sherratt, 1981.
29 See for example Boserup, 1970.
30 Stanley. 198
I.
31 Sherratt, 1983.
32 Sherratt, r98r.
ro Graham, 1962. 1 T Pomeroy, 1984, 348.
12 Gesell. 1983.
I
3 There are some contrasts in more or less
contemporary burial rites which have not
been satisfactorily explained. such as the
coexistence of various types of burial urns
in the British Early Bronze Age.
179
Women in Prehistory
14 Glob, 1974.
15 Coles and Harding, 1979, 329, n. 84.
16
Quoted by Glob, 19 74, 64.
17 Broholm and Hald, 1940, 150.
r 8 Shennan,
I
9 7 5.
r9 Shennan, 1982.
20 Piggott, I 9 3 8; for discussion of recent work
on the Wessex.culture, see for example
Burgess, 1980, 98- 111.
r Bradley, I 98 I. 9 7.
22 See for example Burgess. 1980, 199-209;
Ellison, r 98 r.
23 Bradley, 1981; Bradley, 1978, especially
eh. 3 and p. II 6 ff.
2
24 As above and Fleming,
I
9 7 r.
25 E.g. Martin and Voorheis, 1975, eh. ro
26 Bradley, r981, 103, following Goody,
1976.
27 Larsson, r986.
28 Randsborg, 1974.
29 Larsson, 1986.
30 Levy, 1982.
3 1 Kristiansen, 1984.
Chapter 5
The Celtic Iron Age
1 The re~Qer is referred to Powell, 1980. or
Ross, 1986. for more discussion of this
topic.
2 Clarke, r 9 7 2, based on Bullied and Gray,
1911 and 1917.
3 Coles and Coles, 1986. r 69.
4 Drewett, 1982.
5 Ellison, r 98 r.
6 Piggott, 1965, 198-9; Gallus, 1934;
Dobiat, 1982.
7 Collis, 1984, 69-73; Kastelic, 1965.
8 But see Rankin, 1987, eh. 13.
9 For a recent discussion of the problems and
possibilities of using these sources see
Champion, 198 5.
10 Diodorus Siculus. v, 28; this and other
quotations from classical sources are from
the edition quoted in the bibliography. with
modifications by the author.
rr Ammianus Marcellinus, xv, 12.r.
Ammianus was a late Roman historian
writing in the fourth century AD.
32 Kristiansen, 1984.
r2 Hooper, 1984, 465.
33 Kristiansen, 1984; Larsson. 1986.
13 Rozoy, 1987. Two slightly different
methods of estimating the height of
individuals from the surviving bones were
used, the second method giving average
heights of both men and women 4 cm taller
than the first method quoted in the text.
34 Randsborg, 1974.
35 Kristiansen, 1984, 94.
36 Larsson, 1986, 6 5.
37 Levy, 1982. and pers. comm; Kristiansen,
1984, 86.
38 Gibbs, 1987, 86; Coles and Harding, 1979,
519.
39 Randsborg, 1984, 150.
40 Kristiansen, 1984.
41 Kristiansen. 1981.
42 Gelling and Davidson, 1969, 76.
43 Anati, 1961.
14 Data from The New Encyclopedia Brita1111ica.
I 5th ed. l 986, vol. 20, p. 446, for l 8-yearold (after growth has ceased) British men
and women, in 1965.
15 Ross, 1986. 32-9.
16 Strabo, Geographia. 1v. 4. 3.
17 E.g. Anderson. I 938, 215.
r 8 Estioko-Griffin and Bion Griffin. r 981.
19 Procopius, History of the Wars: the Gothic
War. v1, xv. 16-17.
20 Caesar, De Bello Gallico, I, 50. 4.
21 Chadwick. 1966, 80.
22 Chadwick. 1966, 78-83: Ross. 1986.
23 Tacitus, Amwles, xiv, 30.
180
Notes
24 Rankin, 1987, 253.
25 Livy, Histories, v, 34.
45 Webster, 1978.
46 Tacitus, Annales, XIV, 30-5.
4 7 Dio Cassius, History of Rome, 1x11, 1 ff.
26 Pauli, 1985, 3 7.
2 7 Anderson, 1938, 109.
28 Rivers, 1906, 515.
48 Dio Cassius, History of Rome. 1x11, 2, 4.
29 Guilbert,198r.
50 Webster, 1978, 99.
s 1 Tacitus, Annales, XIV, 34.
49 Dio Cassius, History of Rome, LXII, 1,
30 Harke, 1979.
31 Whiting and Ayres, 1968.
52 Tacitus, Agricola. 16.
32 Harding, 1973; Champion, 1975.
33 Thomson, 1948, 193.
34 Herodotus, IV, 104; IV, 172; IV, 180. Each
of these cases is different in detail. and
perfectly feasible given the broad range of
practices known in the ethnographic
record.
35 Champion, 1985,
I
53 Tacitus, Annales, XII, 35 and 40; Richmond,
1954, 53.
54 Tacitus, Agricola, 3 1.
55 Hanson, 1987, 21; Burn, 1969, 40.
56 Sauter, 1980; Langlois, 198 7.
57° Joffroy, 1962, 126.
58 Filip, 19 77, 43.
7.
36 Anderson, 1938, 70.
3 7 Caesar, De Bello Gallico,I. 5 I. 3.
38 Tacitus, Histories, rv, 18.
59 Filip, 1977, 45.
60 Dent, 1985.
Chapter 6
Conclusions
39 Tacitus, Annales, IV, 51. 2.
40 Tacitus, Annales, XIV, 34, 2.
41 Plutarch, De virtute mulierwn, 6.
42 Tacitus, Annales, XIV, 30.
43 Plutarch, Marius, 19.
44 Caesar, De Bello Gallico, IV,
I.
I
For a survey of various ideas which have
been suggested, see Quinn, 1977.
2 E.g. Friedl, 1975 and 1978.
I.
181
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Index
Aborigines, Australian 51, 53, 59
Abri Pataud, France 68
Abu Huyera, Syria 80, 82
Africa 38, 73, 74, 80. 104, 155, 161;
central 51, 81; east 33, 38, 43, 57;
southern 47, 51-3; west 75
aggression 49-50
agricultural societies 19, 59, 60, 76,
77-107
agriculture 28, 30, 38, 64, 77-107,
108. 113,128, 140-r. 150,154,
161, 172, 173, 175, 179; intensive/
plough 81, 99, 103-5: origins of 9.
77-90, 99, I 78
Agta 53. 156
Akrotiri. Greece I I 3
Ali Kosh, Iran 79
alliances 135, 139. 162. 173
Alps 109, 139-41, 163
amber 108,127.137,
156
Ambigatus T 5 8
Ambrones 164
America, North 64, 75,175; South 8r.
91, l 5 5
American Indians see Indians
Anati. E. r 4 r
Anatolia 70, 7 3. 78
ancestors 7 2
Anglesey, Wales 157, 164
animal behaviour 20, 44. 46, 48
animal food 19, 38, 39, 41, 4.3-4. 49.
51-5, 60,80-1, 84, 9.3-4, 98
animal husbandry 64, 77-8, 81-1, 95,
99-105, 135, 145, 147. 172
animals 44, rr6. 141: models of/in
art 56, 66, 69. 76, 89, 1.39-41. 150
anthropological analogues 14-1 7. p5, 38, 50-1. 7.3-5, 80-1. 94-9, ro.3,
108,128, 152,156,158,160,
l 77
anthropologists 1 9
anthropology: early 12. 1 8-1 9. s 1, 6 )5, 98, 157; physical 20, 25-9, 175:
social 9, 14-20, 99, 17:;-9
apes 41
archaeological evidence: decay of r 2,
13, 2 r. 46, ro9; interpretation of 13.
19, r 15, 14:;; nature of ro, 23-37.
57,104,177;
recovery of r3. 35, 54.
82; see also preservation
archaeological excavation see
excavation
archaeology 7; American 9: early 1 4.
114-15, 120. 142, 174; limitations
of 7, rn; methods 7-8, r 2: theory 7.
8, 13-14. r::;2, 17(1-7
architecture 109,110, 114--15, 160
Arctic SI. S7, 1c;6
art 14, 36, 66, 76, 101. ro3, 109-14,
139-41. 147-c:;1. I'd, 161:
conventions in 36, 11u, r 1 3;
depictions of women in 36, 'i 5-6, h 3,
hh-76, 110-14, 140-r, r47- :;1:
function of p. 76, 1 10-11. I 1:;.
l 40- I
188
artefacts l 5, I 7 5
Asia 81, 104
south-west see Near East
atatls 29-.30
Aulnay-la-Planche, France 160
Australia 51, 53, 55, 59
Austria r.37,175
Ayia Triada, Crete r 10
Ayres, B. 94
axes ro9, 115, 164: hand .39:
stone .39. 127
Bachofen, J. 12, 6 3-4
bags, skin 43, 46-7. 52-.3, 85. 87
Baltic Sea 1 5 5-6
bands, forager 5 9, 6 5
barbarians 151,152, rc:;4. 162
barley 5 7, 78, 80, 85-6
barrows, burial see tumuli
baskets 12, 29, 43, 46, 52, 54
Batavians 163
battles 21, 151, 157, 162-4. 167. 174
beliefs 32, 66, 7 2-4
Bergen, Norway 35
bias, male in archaeology see male bias
Bicorp, Spain 5 5-6
bipedalism 41-2, 46, 48. 175
births, spacing of 6 T. 88-9
Biturges r 58
Blackpatch, England 146
Black Sea 95
blood 35
blood groups 32
boats 138, 140
Bologna, Italy T 5 r
bones: animal .39. 54. 6r, 79, 82. 90.
93, 102, 103; human 25-9.61,
r 22.3, 125, 168, 180
Borum Eshoj, Denmark 119-22
Boudica (Boadicea) 1 64-7, 17 I. r 73
bracelets 119. 124, 144, T 5 j
brain capacity 4 I
8ranc. Czechoslovakia r 2_3-7
breast !ceding 60, 89
Brezje, Yugoslavia 1 s r
Brigantes T 6 7-8
Britain TOO, 143-7. 160, 164--8:
northern 57, 167; southern 127-9
Britons l 5 l. l 6 .3
Bronze Age J 1. 66, 72- 1. 104. I084 r. 142,151,171,
174-5, 179
bronze: artefacts 108-9, r 22. 127-_39,
r47, 149-51. 1_q. 168. r71. 172:
discovery of ro8
brooches _31, 120, JS3, r66
buildings IO, 21, 86, 160-r: use of :q5, 86, 95, T !4-15, l4')-7
bull leaping r 1 2-r 3
burial TI. 12, 1 :i. 2c,-·p, l4, SS, 61.
69, 72, 76, 8'3, 9'\, 97, lJ9, T08, TT839, l40, J42, l4J-4, l 59, I 68-71
burial rites 27, 29, 1 79
Caesar, Julius 21,15 r, rss.1 1 7, 160
Calgacus 1 6 7
2
Californian Indians 28-9
Camulodunum see Colchester
Canada 26, 51
carbon 14 dating 78. 108,175
carbon isotope analysis 28
Cartimandua 167-8
carts 100. 163
t;;atal Hiiviik, Turkey 70
cattle 9_3_-5,
98, 100-3, 106
caves .39, 59, 60, 66, 76. r 16
t;;ayi:inii,Turkey 78
Celts 22, 142, 148, 151-.3, 157. 1627. 171
cemeteries rr, 26-7, 31-2, 123-7.
159, 171
cereals 57, 60. 79-82, 85. 89, 93. 114,
135, 172
ceremonial 30, 74. r 22
Certosa, Italy 149-51
Champagne, France T 5.3
Champion, T. 162
chariots 168,169, 171
chiefs 155. 164-71
childbirth 23, 26. 60-1, 65. 72, 75, 89
child rearing l I.20,41-3,
48-9, 65,
103, 105. 146
Childe, V. G. 63
children 26. 31, 48, 52, 60-2. 70, 75,
83, 85, 88, 96, 98. 103. ro5, 107,
120, 124-6, 14r. 158-9, 160. 163-4
chimpanzees 20, 41-2, 44. 46. 49
Christianity 22, 37, 74,152
Civilis 16.3
civilisation 23, 90, 109
Clarke, D. 58-9, 143-5
classical mythology r 2, 22-3, 63-4, 74
classical sources 21-2, 142, 151-9.
161-8. l 7 2. 180; reliability of IS r-2,
162, 164-5. 167
climate 38, 50-1. q, 57. 81-2
cloaks 148, r 5 1, 166
cloth r 2
clothing TO, 26, ')I. 54, 62, T 19-22.
137. 145
coffins _3I. 11 6, r 19
coins 21 . .35. 167
Colchester, England I 66
Coles. B. and J. 14 5
communication 76
containers 48
copper 108. 124, 137
costume see dress
crafts 28. ')(). _p-4, 105. l 14, 143,
145 7.154-.162
craft specialisation 26, 74-, 106
cremation 2s. 109,120.127,
131. 147
Crete 69-70, 72, 74, 109-18
crop growing 23, 60, 77-90, 9 T, 99,
JO(), 128, IJS, 1:;;c;. 172
Cuevas de la Arat'ia. Spain 'i 5-6
cultivation sec plants
··
customs 29. l 5 2
Cycladic Islands, (~reece 69-7 2
cylinder seals r oo- 1
Czechoslovakia 40. 67. 12 :i- 1
Index
daggers 119. 1 2 7- 30. 1-40
dairy products 27, 60, 100-3, 145
dancing 141, 147-8
Dane bury. England 153
Danub~R. 57,90. 142,160.171
Danubian culture 90-9
dating methods 78, ro8, 175,176
death: age of 25-6, 32. 119. 123,125;
causes of 26-32
debt 107
decay 12, 13. 21, 46, H>9
deities 23, 37, 63-4, 69, 72, 74-5,
rr2-13, 122, I16-18, 136
Demeter 23
Denmark 31. 57, rno, 119-23, 130-6.
138
descent patterns 31-2. 64. 97. 106,
126,151, 157-9, 175
Deverel-Rimbury culture 12 7-9, 1467. I 75
diet 8, 27-9, 35. 39. 43, 51-9. 60. 76,
80, 84,100,126.172
dimorphism, sexual 42. 49
Dio Cassius 151. 164-7
diseases 8, 25-7. 59
division of labour see labour
documentary sources ro, 21-3. 102.
142,148. 151-9, 162-8
dolls 72. 75-6
Dolni Vestonice. Czechoslovakia 40.
67-8
domestic space 34, 94-5, 114-16,
143-7, 160-I. 179
Don, R. 67
dowry r 58-9
dress 31, 36. no, 113. II6-22. 126.
144-5, 148, 153. 159, 166
Druids 157
dryades I 5 7
earth goddesses see goddesses
East Anglia 164
economy II. 51,143.172
egalitarian societies r 1. 6 3-6. 7 5
Egtved. Denmark 119-22
Egypt 21, 63, IOO, IOI, I TO
Elbe. R. 138
elderly people 52, 62, 85, 98, 155
elites I08, I I 8, I 50
Ellison, A. r 46-7
Ember, M. 94. 96
endogamy r 29
Engels. F. 12, 64, 155
England: northern 5 7, 16 7; southern
123, 127-9, 135, 143-7, I 53
environment. natural 38, 4r, 43, 46,
48, 50, 54, 5 7, 60, 62, 76. 82, 98
equality, social and sexual 38. 52, 616, 74, I06, 119, 129, 173
Eskimos (Inuit) 1 5, 26, 5 I
enthnoarchaeology 19, I 75
ethnographic parallels 14-17, 29, 312, 35, 40, 50-1, 58, 73-5, 80-1, 91,
94, 97-9, rn3-6, 123, 128, 161. 181
ethnography 15, 19.26, 151,156,175
Etruscans 1 50-1, 171
Euphrates, R. 79-80
Europe: central 90-1, 104, 137. 161.
171; eastern 66, 137: northern 23,
55, 130-9: north-east 156; r.orthwest 38, 91. 102, 104-5, IIS, 1279, 142, r 5 3, I 62; south-east 77-91,
IOI, 104-5, 137; western 142, 179
Evans, A. II0-II,
II5-r6
evidence, archaeological see
archaeological evidence
evolution, human 9, 20. 38-9, 41-51,
175
excavation II-13, 54, 83,114,143,
174; methods 54, 83, 143
exchange 8, 53, 106-8, 155, 172-3;
of women H>7-8. 129, 135-9
exogamy 129
explorers, early rS, 98,157
faeces 35. 57, 60
faience II6. 127, 175
family 32, 64, 94-5, 99, ro7, 125,129,
155, 160-2, 173
farming see agriculture
farms 143
Fedclm 157
feminist literature 9, 22, 177-9
feminist theories 7, 11. 12, 41-2, 63-4,
98, II8, 174,175
Fenni 155-6
Fertile Crescent 79
fertility magic 37,66, 7_'.\-6, rr3
fighting 147, 163
figurines: animal 76; female 23, 36-7,
63, 66-76, I IO, 1I6-18, 122, 132,
136, I 78; male 69-70, 72, 76
fingerprints on pottery 32
Finland 155
fish and fishing 54-5, 93-4
flint 45, 57-9, 83, 88, 14s
flotation of soils 54, 5 7
food II. 27-9, 38-42, 48, 5r-9, 62,
65, 76, So, 84, 85, rn3, 123, 128,
137, 156, 163: preparation 19, 26.
39, 57, 60, 62. 81, 83, 93, ro5-6,
114-15, 146-7; preservation and
recovery 12, 82; providers, women
as see women; sharing 43, 49, 98,
172; storage 52, 54. 65, 83, 85-7, 95.
114, 146-7
forager societies 14. 26, 29. 38-43, 46.
50-62, 64-5, 76-8, So, 82-6, 88, 90,
I06, 156, 172-3, 175,176,178
Fossey, D. 20
France 21, 57,60-1,66,68.
14r, 1534, 160, 168-9
Franchthi Cave, Greece 5 7
frescoes r I o- 1 8
funerary rituals 130, 147, 149-51
Gamble, C. 76
gathering 38, 42-3, 47-9, 51-9, 62,
83-5, 156, 172
Gaul 21, 151, 153-5, 159, 163
gender roles 8, 14, 17-20, 26, 29, 3 7.
42. 77, 80-2. roo. 102, 104-5. 123,
143. 147. 151-6, 175, 176. 178:
assessment of 143: assumptions
about 8, 17-18, 148, 154
Germans 142,151,155,
157-8, 163
Germany 138,154. 158-60, 168
girls 31, 74-5. 120, 125-6. 158-9
glaciations 38, 44, SI. 57, 76
Glastonbury, England 143-5
goddesses 2"3. 37, 63. 66-76, 112-q,
] 16-18, 122
gold roS. 124, 127, 130-r. 166, 168.
171
Goldberg, Germany r 60
Goodall, J. 20
gorillas 20
grain 8 5-7. 146; see also cereals
grasses 28, 57-8. 79-80, 82, 85
grave goods 11, 28-31, 61, 72, 76, 97,
I08-9, I I 8-39, 143, I 54, I 68-7 I,
175
Great Rift Valley, Africa 38
Greece 57, 74, 102, 112, 150
Greek literature 21, 63,102.142,
1512. 163-4
Hacilar, Turkey 70
hairstyles 55, II0-II.
113, rr6. II9,
141,147. 1.53. 157,164,166
Hallstatt phase 147, I 50. I 59-60,
168-9. 175
Hanseatic league 3 5
Harris lines 28
harvesting 81. 85-6, rn3, 135. 172
healing 15 1. 163
health I 19
hearths 60, 74, 87, 95, 98, 114
Helen 63
Herodotus 1 5 I. 162
Henneberg. Germany I 60, l 7 I
Hidatsa 19
hierarchies rn6, 135
hillforts 153, 160. 168, 171, 175
historical sources see written records
history 21-2: women's 7, 8. 10
hoards. bronze 1 31-4, 1 39
hoe agriculture 19, 80-1, 91-3, 98,
rn4, 106
Hohmichele, Germany 1 7 r
Holmegaard, Denmark 5 7
homebases 19, 38. 40, 43, 48. 59-62,
67, 75, 86, 89
Homer 63. 102, 114
hominids 38-9, 41-3. 46, 48-9, 175
Homo sapiens sapiens 3 9, 4 I. I 7 5
honey 55-6
horses 145, 147-8, 156,158
horticultural societies 29, 53, 80-99,
155, 159
horticulture So, 98, 103-4, I 72, 176
houses II. 12. I4, 34, 39. 40, 59-62,
67, 70. 74-5, So. 83-4,86-7,89,948, ms. n8, 144-7, 155-6, 160-1:
shape of 34, 94, 160-1; function
of 34-5, 86, 95, 114-15, 143-7
human evolution see evolution
Hungary 100, 147-8
hunter-gatherer societies see forager
societies
hunting 20, 26, 29, 38-9. 41-4, 46,
49,65-6. 82, 84, 90,94, 98. 100,
rn2-3, ro5, 141, 147, 155-6, 176: by
women 14,29-30,43,
53, 55,156,
177
huts 59-60, 74, 86, 145-7
Iberians 160
IceAge 15,38,44,51,76
Iceni 164, 168
Icoana, Romania 5 7
ideology 76
idols 66
India 160
Indians, American 28; Hidatsa 19;
Iroquois 64. 9 7-9; Knoll 29-30:
Navaho 16; Zuni 75
infanticide 2 7, 60
infant mortality 26-7, 89. 125-6
Women in Prehistory
infants 31, 42-3, 46, 48-9, 105, 125,
141
inheritance 30-1, 106, 124-6, 129,
159
inhumation 118,120, r3r, 176
initiation ceremonies 74
interpretation, archaeological r 3
Inuit 15, 26, 51, 53
invention, tool 41-2, 48, 87
Iran 79
Iraq 54, 58, 79, 88-9
Ireland 22, 57,137,159
lrishsagas 22, 152-3, 157,159
iron 108, 171
Iron Age 21, 31, 35, 142-71, 173,175,
176
Iroquois 64, 9 7-9
irrigation So, roo
Israel 79
Italy 139-41, 149-51, 164
Jericho, Israel 79, 89
jewellery 31, 108-9, III,
130, 132-9, 153,168
Jocasta 63
Joffroy, R. 169
Jordan 79
rr9, 127-8,
Kalahari desert 47, 5 r-3, 59, 84
Kalambo Falls, Tanzania 57
Kenya 57
kinship 50, 96-7
kinship patterns ro6, rr6, 139, 15762
Klein Aspergle, Germany I 7 I
Knossos, Crete 110-12, 114-18
Kombe, Tanzania 20, 44
KoobiFora, Kenya 57
Kornwestheim, Germany 160
Kostienki-Borchevo, Russia 67
krater 168
Kristiansen, K. 132-5, I3 7-9
!Kung 47, 51-3, 59, 84
labour, division of 22, 41, 43, 53, 65,
80-T, 83,91, JOO, 102, 104-5, 1437, T51-6
labour force 97, 105, 129
land ownership 98, 99, ro4, ro6, r 29,
155, 159
language, development of so
Lapps 156
La Tene phase r::;3, 168
latrines 3 5
Laussel, France 68
laws 22
leaders rr, 146, 162, r64-7r
leadership 63, 1 l 3, 158, 173
learning 49, 106
leather working 26, 144-5, 147
legends 22-3, ITT
Lengyel Culture 9 'i
Levant 86
Levy, J, r_p
Linear A I ro, I 76
Linear Pottery Culture 90-9. 103, 160,
179
literary sources lo, 2 r - 3, 6 3-4, r 423, 148, 151-6
Lithuania T 5 5
Livy r58
London, England r66
longhouses 92-9
loomweights 102
Lune berg, Germany 138
luxury goods 168
lyre 147
Mabinogion r 5 2
magic 73-5
Majorca 69
male bias in archaeology and
anthropology 8, 17-18, 4r. 51, 65,
120,156, 174, 177
male dominance ro, 12, 50, 63, 99,
135,145,173
male-female bonding 49-50
male figurines 66-70, 72, 76
Mallia, Crete 110, 114
malnutrition 2 7
Malta 69
Man the Hunter 41, 51
Marius 164
marriage 31, 49, 120, 125-6, 139,
r 52, 169; residence after 32-4, 94-8
marriage patterns 34, 94, 96, I 29, I 5 r,
157-62
Marxist theories 14, r 79
material culture 14, 1 o 5
material possessions II. 62, 86, 90,
ro6-7, 143, 159
matriarchies rr-12, 22-3, 63-6, 109TO, 155, 176
matrifocal groups 49-50
matrilineal descent 63-4, 97-8, 106,
II6, 126, 158-9, 175, 176
matrilocal residence 32, 64, 94-8, 106,
175, 176
matrons 98, 157
Mbuti 51
Medb 1 59
meat 27-8, 39, 42, 46, 51-5, 57, 76,
82, TOO, 102-3
medieval period 2 r, 35; early 22, r 523
Mediterranean 23, 57-8, 60, 66, 69,
73, ro9, 142
megalithic tombs I 79
Mellaart, J. 70
Melville I.. Australia 55
men, depicted with penises 5 5, 70, r 4951
Menelaus 63
menstruation 3 5
merchants 35, 108
Mesoamerica I 79
Mesolithic 38, 54-9, 62, 176
Mesopotamia 21, 79, 100-2
metal analysis r 31
metals. raw r 30, r 3 7
metalworking 30, 108, 147
microliths 5 8-9
microwear analysis 45, 57
migration 96-7, 158
milk and milk products 27, 60, roo-3.
145
Minerva 23
Minoans 37, 69. IOI. ro9-r8, 173
missionaries r 8, 81, 98
models: animal 66, 69, 76; human 23.
66-76; theoretical I 76
monogamy 34,41,49,
94, 158-9, 161
Mont Lassois, France r 68
Monte Bega, France 14 r
Morgan, L. H. r 2, 64
M6rr[gan 23
mortality patterns 25-32, 125-6
mother goddess 22-3, 66-76
mounds, burial 32,127,159,168,171,
I75
Muhlacker, Germany 159
Mureybet, Syria So, 86-7
Mycenaean period 102
mythology 12, 22, 23, 63-4, 74,
114, 136, 152-3, 156, 178
III,
Natufian phase 86
Near Ea~ 34, 63, 69, 70, 77-90, 93,
99, TOT, 104-5, 173
necklaces 119,126,127,
153
Neolithic 26, 29, 34, 54, 55, 60, 66,
69-74, 76, 77-ro7, 116, 135, 142,
172, 173, 176
Newferry, Ireland 57
New Guinea So, 81-2, 91, 155
New York, USA 98
nomads 38-40, 59-60, 65, 77, 84-5,
88
Nordic area r 32-9
Norway 35
nutrition 26-7, 126
nu~ 46,48, 52-3, 56-7, 62, 84, 98
obligations 88. 173
Odyssey 114
Oedipus 63
offspring 42, 46, 48-9
open-air sites 39, 60, 76
organic materials 12, 2r. 31,
59, 62, 114, II9, 123, 137,
ornaments 31, 62, 97, 108-9,
124, 128-39, 144-5, 153-4,
osteo-arthritis 26
46, 58,
143
119-20,
168
Pacific Islands 8 r, 82
palaces rro, 114-16, rr8
Palaeolithic 9, 3 7. 38-76, 77-8, 80, 86.
151. 172-3
paleopathology 119,123,176
pastoral societies 102,128,135,
173
patriarchy ro, 12, 63-6. 166, 176
patrilineal descent 64. 9 7, 99, 106,
II6, 126, T58
patrilocal residence 32, 94-8, 106, 139,
158
Pauli, L. 159
Paulinus, S. 157, 164
peace 164, 174
Penelope I 14
Phaestos, Crete r ro
phallic representations 55, 70, r 40-r
Philippines 53,156
phosphate analysis 9 5
physical anthropology 20, 2 5-9, 4 r.
175
pigs 82, 93-4, 98, 103
pins 30, rr9, 126, 127, 130
plant food 27, 38-9, 42-3, 48. 51-9.
62, 93, r56, 172, 174
plants. cultivation of 77-90, 91. r 7 5
plough agriculture 81-2, 99, 103-5
plough marks I oo
ploughs 64, 80, 93. roo-2. ro4, ro6,
141, 172, 176
Plutarch r 6 3
Poland roo
political organisation 13. 74, 105
political power I r, 64, r 5 7. 1 58
pollen analysis 60, r 35
Index
polyandry r6o-r
polygamy 34, 94, 160-2
polygyny 125-f?, r6o
Pomerania 138
population: growth 77, 85, 89, 90. 97,
104, ros, 179; size 66, r r9, r62:
statistics 26
Posidonius 21
possessions. personal 62, 64-5, 84, ·s6,
88, ro7, 108-9. 118-19. 126, 132,
r59, r68, r73
post-excavation analysis r 3
post-marital residence 33, 34-5, 94-8,
ro6, 129, 139, 158-62, 175, 176
pottery 32-4, 46, 69, 77. 87, 90. 93.
roo. IOI. 114. 137. 144, 147-8. 179
poverty II. ro7, r r8, 130, r36, 156,
171
power r4. 63. 98. 158, r7r, r76;
women with rr, rr8, 157. 162. 16471, 173
praying 141, 147
pregnancy 26, 28. 37, 43. 60. 70. 72.
73, 74-5, 105
prehistory, definition of 2 r. r 76
preservation of archaeological
material 12. 3r. 35. 39. 46. 54, 58.
59, 82, 95, I00, 109, II3, II4, II9,
143. r68
prestige 53. 155
prestige goods r 34-5
priestesses 74, rr2. rr6-r8. r57, 169
primates 20, 38, 41-4, 46. 48-9
Procopius r S6
property see possessions
protein roo
puberty 74-5
pygmies 51
Pyrenees 67, 142
queens rr, 63. rr4-r6.
159
quernstones 8 7-8. 9 3, 9 7
racism r 74
radiocarbon dating 78,108,175,
176
radiographic analysis 28
Randsborg, K. 130, 135
raw materials 124, r30. r37
religion 15, 51, 72-3, rrr, 136, r40,
ISI, 157, 169, 173, 174
residence patterns 94-8, r 06
Rhine, R. 90, 142. r54. 163
riding 139. 145, 147-8
ritual r8, 35, 64, 72, 73, ro9, III.
rr3-r8,
122,136, 15r
rock art 55, 109, 138-41
roles, gender see gender roles
Roman conquest 142, 172. 176
Roman empire ro. 21, 74. 154. 162
Roman literature 21,142, 151-9, r72
Romania 57
rooms. function of 95, rro, rr4-r6.
143
roots (as food) 46, 48. 52, 58. 62, Sr,
98
Rossen culture 9 S
rulers, women 63, r68
Russia 66
Rwanda 20
sagas, Celtic 22, 152-3. 157
Sahara 26
sanitary protection 3 5
Santorini, Greece l r .3
Scandinavia 55, rn9, 118-23, r.30-40,
156
scavenging .39, 43, 86
scientific analysis r 3. 3 5
Scrithfinni 156
secondary products revolution 99-107
sedentary lifestyles 77. 85-7, r76, 179
seeds as food 58, 79, Sr, 83-7:
archaeological recovery of f3, 54, 57,
82
Senufo 75
settlement patterns 77
settlement sites rr, 12, .34-5, 72, 8.3,
91-9, IOS, TI8. 127-8, 142-7, I62,
174,176
sex roles see gender roles
sexist bias in archaeology see male bias
sexual differences, natural 20, 24-5,
41-2, I 23
Shanidar cave. Iraq 54, 58
sharing food 48-9, 98, r 72
sheep 82, 98, 102, 103, 128
shellfish 55
shells 97
shelters 39. 59, 60, 62. 76, 86
Shennan, S. 12.3, 126, r.30
Sherratt. A. roo-2, ro4
shrines 70. 119
sickles 1 .3.3,r 35
Sitones r 5 5-6
situla art I 49-5 I
skeletal evidence 25-.34, 38, 41, 57, 61,
8.3. 109, 122-.3. r4r. 153,171, 174.
180
skeletons, sex of 24-5, 61, 109, I 22-4,
127, 130. r68
skins 5 7-8. 59
skirts r 10. r r .3, 1 r 6, r r9-22, r .36,
147-8
slaves 113, 120, 156, r59
Slocum, S. 42
Slovakia I 2 3-7
snake goddesses 11 o, 116-18
snakes IIO, 116
social anthropology 9, 14, 15-20, 99,
175. 177,179
social change ro5
social equality 38, 61-2, 63-6. 74. ro6,
119,r29,1.35
social gatherings 150
social status 12, 29, 62, 74, 77. rn5,
109, 116-18, 128-30, r36, 143,
155-9, 168,172,176,179
social stratification rr, 74, 104, 106.
108. rr9, 124-5, 1.35. 159,179;
origin of I I. 88, 106
social structure 1.3. 15, 61-5, 94, rn5,
IIS, 151-2, 160,173
societies: classless/egalitarian r r, 6 .3-6,
75; present-day/traditional
14-r 5,
17, 20, 38-9,43, 65, 81-2. 84,99,
r 18, r .36. r 52, r 75; Western, effect on
traditional 18, 50, Sr, 82: Western.
expectations of 15, 17, r8, 50, 62,
r 19, r 20, 144-7, 148; see also
agricultural, forager, horticultural,
pastoral
soils 13, 54, Sr, 90, L04-5, 1.35
Sopron. Hungary 14 7-8
sorcery 75
Spain 55-6, 66
spears 29, r 19
specialisation 26, 74, ro6
Spector, J. 19-20
speeches r 6 7
spindle whorls r 02. r 45
s~nning 30, 34, 102-3, 144, 147-8
Stanley. A. 99
Star Carr, England S 7
statuettes see figurines
status. assessment of 3 r, r 25-6, r .30,
132
statusofwomen
rr. 12, 17-18. 2.3, 26,
.31. .34, .37, 52, 54-6. 59, 65. 74, 77,
8r. 96, 98-9, rn5-7, ro9-r3, rr618, l 25-6, 128-9, 132, 134-6, 143,
r46, r55-9, 168, 171-2, 176,178,
179
status symbols r8. 125-6
Stone Age, Old see Palaeolithic
New see Neolithic
stone artefacts 62, 77,124,137
storage of food 52. 54, 65, 8.3, 85-7,
95, 114, 145-7
storage vessels 106. 114
Strabo 21, r54
strontium/calcium analysis 2 7-8
subsistence patterns 14, 38
Suebi 164
Suiones r 5 5-6
sumptuary goods 12.3, 125-6, 171
surpluses 88, 107
Sweden 55, 12.3, 130-40
Switzerland r 02
swords r19, 132, 134, 140, 164
sympathetic magic 73. 75
Syria 79, 80, 82, 86
Tacitus 21. 151, 154-65, 167-8
Tain 152, 159
Tanzania 20, 5 7
'Task Differentiation. Male/Female' r 920. I 79
teacher, mother as 49, ro6
teeth 26. 28-9. 49, 57, 123
temples 116
termite fishing 46, 48
Terra Amata, France 60-r
Teviec, France s 7
textiles 35, 102-3, 105. 109. rr4,
122-.3. 171
theoretical archaeology 7, 8, 13-14,
152,176,177
theories, formation of 13-14, 177
Thera, Greece r r 3
Thracians 1 6 3
throne room l 1 5
Tigris, R. 79
Tiwi 53, 55
Toda 160
~o~ II, 14, 29, .3r, 32. 62, 64, 86-9,
99, 106, I 14, r24, 142-5, 147. I 74;
bronze 108-9, 132: flint 57-9, 83;
invention of 41-2, 48, 87; iron 14.34; stone .38-9, 45, 55, 57-9, 60, 77,
88-9, 9.3
tool using, origins of 20, 39, 4r, 43, 46
torcs 166, r68
towns 70, 89, ro9, II3
toys 72, 75
trace elements 1 .37
trade 108, r 3 7-9: in women 108, r 29,
r.35, f36-9
tribes 1 52
Tripolye culture 9 5
191
Women in Prehistory
trousers 14 7-8, r S3
tumuli 32,127,159.171,
Turkey 70. 73, 78, 79
175-6
Val Camonica, Italy 1 40-r
Vaphio, Crete l I 3
Viisterbjers, Sweden S 5
vegetation, natural 38, 44, 50-r. 60,
8r-2
Veleda 157
Venus figurines 66-76
Venutius 167
Verulamium, England 166
vessels: bronze 147, 149-51, 168,171:
wooden 87
villages 19, 70, 92, 94, 96. 98, 127-9.
143-4, 146, 173
Virgin Mary 3 7, 6 3
Vix, France 168-9
Vopiscus 157
votaries 74, II6. 122, 136
wagons 147, 161, 168
walking upright 41-2, 46, 48, 175
wall paintings r 1 o- r 8
war 23, 96, 98, 162-4
warfare 22. 29, 65, ro5. r4r, 155,
157,158,174;
women in 151, 1624
warriors l 50
waterlogged deposits 3r. _15, roo, 119
wealth ro. 1 I. 14. 88, 99, 104, ro6-8,
123, 125-6, 128. r.N-S, r7r. 173:
assessment of 29, 109, 124-5, T30-1.
.,
134; display of ro8-9, 135
weapons 29, 41-2, 58. 108,119, 1234, 127, 130, l p. 134, q8-40,
143-4, 156,158, 164, 168, 174
wear patterns 28-9, 139
weaving 16-17, 30. 34, ro2-_1, 144,
147-8
Wessex Culture T 2 7-9
Western societies see societies
Wetwang, England 1 70-1
wheat 78-80, 85-6, 91, 98
wheel 100
Whiting, J. 94
Willendorf. Venus of 36. 68
women as:
arbiters and negotiators T 6 3
farmers 81, 83, 91, 99,113,135,
T4 T, T54
foragers 156, 172
gatherers 47, 51-9, 172
healers r5r. 163
honey gatherers 5 5-6
house builders 62
hunters 14, 29-30, 4.1, 53, 55, 156,
177
leaders JI. 63,113,126,
164-71,
I 73
potters 3 2-4
priestesses r r 2, I 5 7, I 7 3
prophets r 5 l, r 5 7
providers of food II. 51-9, 6r. 76,
90, 93, 103, 155, 163, 172
ritual specialists , r, r T3, T3 5, r 5 T,
r73
spinners and weavers 16, 102-3,
148
teachers 49. 106
tool inventors 48, 99
tool-makers 5 S
warriors 1 s I, I 62-4
women: exchange of 129, 135, 136-9;
high-status ro. rr. TT8; lowstatus JO, TT, TT8, 136,173;
powerful 11, 98,113,118,
157; role
of in evolution 9, 41-50
women's history 7, 8, ro
wood, preservation of 12, 58, 62. 114,
143
wood: tools 62; vessels 87,145
wool 102, 119, 153
workshops 34, r 14, 144-5
written records ro-12, 21-3, 63-4, 73,
99, IIO, 142, 148, 151-9. 162-8,
172,176
Yugoslavia
T 50-r
Zeeland 138
Zihlman, A. 41
Zuni 75